AOS
by HoochieKookoo
Summary: AU. Love will always lead us down the better path, but hate can never die. Eventually, they all fall. And when an undiscovered strength surfaces from the courage he receives as he stands to defy fate, Pikachu learns how much he is willing to sacrifice for the safety of his friends.
1. 1

**An Origin Story**

...

Pikachu was limp and wary during her few conscious minutes, but the sense of smell would make her faint more quickly than her exhaustion. The Pokémon that were carrying her smelled like bile, and the fresh blue paint on their hands stained her dirty, yellow fur. Her heart-shaped tail scraped along the ground, brushing over the grass that reflected sunlight off of the morning dew, which remained from the previous night's rainfall. She groaned as they pulled her, provoking a violent kick in her ribs from the leader.

They suddenly stopped in a clearing, laying Pikachu down gently on her side.

She spit on the Pokémon's foot in response, and did her best imitation of human sign language, using the symbol for "bird". They kicked her in each of the bruised organs that, under more merciful circumstances, would have functioned as kidneys. She knew that her time was short, but her boyish and offensive personality didn't show any restraint from pain or hopelessness.

The leader stepped before her.

"Don't bruise it anymore than you already have," the familiar voice commanded. "We need her as awake and energetic as possible."

"You won't get anything else from me, Charmander," she squeaked in response.

"I've gotten as much from _you_…" He bent down and turned her chin up tenderly to face him.

"… as I could ever need." He released her head, letting it thump on the grass.

"By the way, your boyfriend isn't coming for you anytime soon. I made sure of that."

Pikachu grappled with the thought, finding it impossible to believe.

"He's dead?" she asked.

"Just like the rest of your kind."

The Charmander raised his hand and placed it on her forehead, but withdrew it almost immediately. Pikachu began to chuckle.

"What the _hell_? What did you do?! Where is your Aura?!"

"He's not… *cough*… dead." She continued to laugh, leaving Charmander's question unanswered. He pinned her to the ground with his foot. Now that she was on her back, the sun shined onto her face and the tears on her cheeks reflected sunlight into his eyes.

"Not dead, huh?" Charmander stepped off of her sternum and let her breath again. He then motioned for two of his clan to approach him. "Go back to Ground Zero, and make sure that they are **all **dead."

"The egg, sir?"

"I will deal with that personally."

The Charmanders saluted, grunted in understanding, and disappeared into the trees. The other clan members watched them until they were out of their line of sight, then returned to watching the exchange between their leader and the captive Pikachu. She rotated her head, counting off which of the Pokémon she would kill and in what order. Her head stopped on the Pokémon hovering over her.

_I'm saving him for last._

As she imagined all the ways a vile Charmander could die, her vision flashed.

_What was that? _she thought. She squinted her eyes, beckoning them to produce another flash. It happened again, this time lasting for a few seconds. It was shaky, and it never lasted more than a moment, but it was clear what was causing it.

She glanced back into the trees, up into the branches and at the source. The ray of light hit her eyes again, but when it realized that she saw it, it stopped shining. Now, Pikachu saw; a Pokémon she'd never seen before. Obviously, it had to have been from another continent altogether. It was somewhat tall compared to her and most likely stood on two feet, but she could see nothing else besides the shape.

Then, it put its fingers to its mouth. She wondered what it was going to do and why it caught her attention in the first place, but all doubts were erased when a loud whistle echoed through the clearing, earning the attention of every Charmander in a two-hundred meter radius.

It was rescuing her.

While the Idiotics were fazed by the irritating whistle, the Pokémon slipped down the tree and into the bushes. The closest Charmander unleashed a flame from its jaws and swept it through the brush, but the figure danced through the branches and twigs in its way and circled around the clearing, concealed by the foliage. Pikachu got to her feet, all four at first. She was still shaky and unsure, but Charmander was preoccupied, having turned to face the mysterious vigilante.

_Bad move._

Pikachu summoned the rest of her Aura and focused it into her hands, creating a blue-green barrier around the tips of her fingers and her palms. She pushed off of the ground with her arms, snapping them in front of her and clamping her hands over his flame-tipped tail. The fire went out.

Charmander collapsed, dead.

…

**Episode1: A Fresh Perspective**

**Chapter One: **_Introductions, Part 1 of 3  
_

…

Pikachu hated breaking a promise, but the joy of ending the miserable creature that was now lying in the mud outstandingly overcame the consequence. A promise made so hastily and to yourself is also much easier to forgive. She put her hands up to her eyes and examined the burns, but instead, her eyes focused past her fingers. Multiple Charmanders were looking at the corpse of their careless pack leader, astounded. His war paint coated the grass around him, his jaw was agape and his eyes were sunken and white. The myths were true, apparently. They could die as easily and literally as the Squirtle Squad put out a fire.

Not attentive enough, something flew out of the forest toward the Pokémon. It circled around like a boomerang, hitting many of them in the head and knocking them unconscious. Some of the Charmanders ducked, but were left breathless as the object barely skimmed their tails, giving the illusion of flickering candles. The weapon reentered the woods and emerged again a few moments later, flying over the scalps of the Charmanders while they dove to the ground.

Pikachu kept her head down, pressing her ears flat against her skull. Her tail was still limp and therefore motionless, willing or not to being controlled was questionable if possible. She nudged it with her foot, but felt nothing. Her vision started to blur as blood began rushing into her head.

She looked back at the battle, then at the dead Charmander.

Pikachu used her feet to push herself toward him, pulling with her arms all the way. She had fistfuls of dirt and grass pulled up by the time she got by his side. Using her arm to leverage her weight, she reached inside his mouth and began feeling along the roof of it. It was disgusting; she could feel the remains of his breakfast stuck in his teeth; most likely, one or more members of her family.

She found what she was searching for and grasped it with her claws. It took her several seconds, but she managed to tear it out of his mouth. Pikachu held the object up to her eye; it was bloody, but otherwise undamaged. The light that emanated from it was fading, so she had to act quickly.

The Aura sealed by the gemstone flowed into her body. Her bruises and bones healed as the energy renewed her spirit. Cuts closed as blood clotted the tears at an amazing rate.

"Look out!"

Pikachu ducked again, covering her head and peeking toward the battle. The Charmanders had turned their attention away from their leader completely, pointing their short fingers into the air. Something was gliding above them; another Pokémon that she'd never seen before. It circled around the torrents of fire that shot toward it and landed almost directly in front of her. She saw it clearly.

A hooded squirrel, black and white with yellow cheeks. Her ears stood round and high over her head, her tail was long and shaped like a bird's wing. Her eyes were beady, like Pikachu's, just slightly larger, and a yellow, cape-like membrane stretched from her wrists to her waist. She turned her back to the grateful Pikachu and let out a loud whistle, similar to the boomerang-thrower's signal, but with a higher pitch.

A group of Pokémon approached the Charmanders from the west:

A penguin. Blue and white feathers. Orange beak and feet. Male. She identified it as a Sinnoh Pokémon, many of which migrated to Kanto earlier in the year. He was a Piplup, and would have no problem fighting the fire types.

There was no way to describe the next one in only one word. He was mostly orange, bipedal, and rather mischievous looking. A red protrusion sprouted from his skull. His head was round and held up by a skinny neck, which had yellow, shed skin handing off of it.

The last of the three, another Sinnoh Pokémon. A rabbit, brown fur and light yellow wool. Female. She also wore clothing, strangely enough; an orange scarf, much too large for her neck, so it covered most of her upper body. The ends were wrapped around her body and tucked back into the collar. Pikachu could vaguely remember seeing this Buneary somewhere before.

As soon as she was able to, she stumbled onto two legs and advanced toward the group, but a pair of hands reached around her from behind and hefted her into its arms. He was much taller and stronger than any of his evolution, or even his subspecies, standing only slightly shorter than a Raichu. His Aura was strong and addictive, making Pikachu almost begin to draw his energy from him, but she resisted the urge reluctantly. Doing something like that would be fatal to the Pokémon being drawn from.

This Pikachu was also familiar to her, but much older than any of her living siblings. She noticed how, despite comparative weights, he had no problem holding her. _He can't possibly be from around here, _she thought, _but I'm almost certain that I've met him before. _

"Are you hurt?" he asked. His voice was unexpectedly young and kind.

"N-No. Not anymore – put me down."

She wiggled in his grasp, but a jolt of electricity ran through her spine. The Pikachu refused to let her go.

"You're too injured to walk. Just, please, take it easy. I want to help."

Without letting her reply, he shuffled backwards into the brush once again. She was too tired to fight back. But when they entered the next area, she was greeted by a flurry of vines that wrapped themselves around her waist and lifted her from Pikachu's grasp. The vines set her down against a tree trunk.

She nodded a 'Thank you' before her mind faded into darkness.

…

"Her foot is broken, she's suffering from multiple lacerations and she has a black eye. I can't tell whether she has any internal injuries yet."

Servine evaluated the sleeping Pikachu, flipping through a medical journal of her creation for instruction of proper treatment.

"Just make sure she wakes up," Pikachu replied. "I don't want to have risked all our asses for nothing," he finished as he turned to reenter the clearing.

"Pikachu –"

"I have to go, Servine…"

"**Pikachu!**"

He glanced over his shoulder.

"Be careful," she said.

Pikachu nodded, stepped into the clearing and walked toward the Charmanders.

…

Upon seeing him approach, Buneary dropped her attention for a few moments to watch him stride toward them. Piplup stood only a foot away from her while Scrafty was out in front, tormenting the group of Charmanders.

"What are waiting for, assholes? You were just about to kill that Pikachu. Why am I any different? I fucking dare you. Take a shot, come on. Flamethrower me. Do it!"

The Charmanders said nothing. They didn't want to provoke another volley of aerial attacks from whoever had sent them.

"Oh, I get it. Because she was a girl? Because she was hurt, right? Because you thought nobody would step in to help her? Or do none of you know Flamethrower?"

"Cool it, tough guy. You don't want to bite off more than you can chew."

Axew jumped onto Scrafty's back and gave him a vicious noogie. He tried to shove the dragon off, but the weight of Axew, who had grown considerably since the last time he'd ambushed him, was throwing him off balance. Axew released him and jumped out of the way as Scrafty tumbled down. The back of his head hit the ground with a _thud_, his sharp crest sinking into the soft earth like it was warm butter.

Scrafty struggled to free himself while Axew rolled on the ground, laughing hysterically. Piplup and Buneary looked at each other with amazement that these Pokémon were still alive after all that had happened to them.

"Do they need medication or something?" Piplup asked jokingly.

Buneary gave him a deathly glare. He realized what he'd said and regret of his word choice consumed him.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry. It's not like I need **help **or anything!"

"I can help you," Buneary decided. She walked toward Scrafty, but was stopped when one of the Charmander clan caught her eye.

It glared at her with an intense hatred, so much so that she cringed away from the group. She covered her face with her scarf, blocking her view of the fire type, much like she would when complimented by Pikachu. Now that she was blind, the only things on her mind were the tears staining her eyelids. Piplup stepped forward and touched her paw in an attempt to comfort her.

Charmanders began to mutter amongst themselves. At discovering the clumsy and easily submissive nature of the Pokémon in front of them, they began to regain their confidence. They spread further apart from each other, now surrounding the four Pokémon. Being a small group, the odds were three to one against them.

Piplup noticed this and begged for Buneary to lower her scarf so that she could see the danger, but the stubborn rabbit was paralyzed by the fear and hate that hid behind the eyes of the Charmanders. Axew rushed forward and tried desperately to free Scrafty from the ground, pulling on his head with the force of a Haxorus.

"I can't get your head out, Scrafty!"

"Then get someone else to help! Get Dewott!" Scrafty shouted, his voice cracking in fear.

"Buneary, stay behind me," ordered Piplup. He pushed her behind his back, where she remained. "It was stupid to think that we could take them on. Damn it, Scrafty."

"**Pikachu! Pikachu, please!**," she screamed. "**Pikachu!**"

"I'll be right back, Scrafty. Just don't break your neck or anything. I'll be right back!" Axew turned to face Piplup. "Where the fuck is Emolga?!"

A Charmander shouted a battle cry, and they all joined in unison. Piplup watched in helpless horror as they charged Scrafty simultaneously.

"**Oh, **_**fuck!**_" he screamed, head still securely attached to the ground.

He reached to his side, scooping a clump of dirt and grass from the earth. As the first Charmander reached him and prepared to shred him to pieces with its jagged teeth, he threw the dirt into its face. It jumped back in pain, rubbing its eyelids. He then pushed off the ground with his legs and swung them up to its face, but instead of being kicked, it felt itself being grasped by its throat. It was given no time to react as Scrafty swung his legs back down. Charmander was thrown into the air and over the heads of its colleagues, landing against the tree that Buneary had backed against. It stirred and tried to sit up, but it wasn't quick enough. She punched the Charmander in its nose, knocking it out.

Another Charmander replaced it. The remaining eighteen members of their clan stampeded past it at the three intruders.

It smiled at the foolish Scrafty. He smiled back.

It reared its head back and unleashed another large flame, point blank, into Scrafty's face. Seconds passed. The flame continued to roast his face and the ground around him, turning it into dry, cracked, lifeless soil. After a few more seconds, Charmander stopped to examine its handiwork. His face was completely blackened, leaving no texture whatsoever; soot covering the majority of his upper body. It was about to leave, when Scrafty arched his back and propelled his head upward.

The sharp edge of his protrusion broke out of the weakened sod and slammed into the awaiting jaw of his attacker, slicing through the bone and muscle. It flew up into the air and hit the ground behind Scrafty. Now that he was free, he rushed over to help Axew, who was being overtaken by the majority of the combatants.

…

Emolga balanced herself on the tree branch. If the wind didn't adjust soon, she would have to take a desperation measure. Leaps of faith weren't her favorite thing to do, but Axew's life depended on it. Even now, she could see him getting pummeled by the Charmanders, passing him between them like schoolyard bullies torturing a younger student. He slashed at their faces, scoring a hit almost every time, but not being fast enough to dodge the followup attacks made by the others.

"Please, please, please," she chanted to herself. The wind continued to shake the branches, which she felt creak under her weight. Time was running out. She saw Pikachu race across the field, and prayed that he would make the right decision.

…

His feet pounded against the ground. Electricity coursed through his body, the nerve endings in his face sparking into numbness. It crackled against his skin and made small popping sounds that sounded in rhythm with the beat of his sprint. They never saw him coming.

His forehead collided with the spine of the first, second, third Charmander in his way. They each spun into the air and skidded across the ground, not able to get back up.

"Pikachu!" Buneary greeted him with enthusiasm.

"About fucking time!" said Piplup, currently fending off a wave of swipes dealt by a team of Charmanders. He ducked under and around their claws while Buneary gracefully hopped over her opponents and outmaneuvered their flame attacks. Pikachu had hoped to assist them, but he'd attracted the attention of the Charmanders that were standing on the metaphorical sidelines. He counted about four toothy grins pointed his way, or four sets of teeth that he was going to bust out.

"Don't do it," he warned as they began to group around him. Another circle strategy, he realized. Whoever trained these Pokémon must have been obsessed with power, throwing it at their enemies all at once instead of wearing them down gradually.

"_Don't do it._" He said again, raising his fists. They had no idea how deep the shit that they'd just stepped in went.

You don't get into a boxing match with Punchin' Pikachu.

Piplup dispatched the two Charmanders that he'd been avoiding with a well-placed Drill Peck. Far too inexperienced to know the difference, they'd knocked each other out with their own attacks as Piplup rushed between them. Now, they rested on the ground, recovering from the humiliating defeat at the hands of a penguin. The humiliating part being, of course, that penguins didn't have hands. He turned his attention to Buneary, who was still dodging the Charmander's Flamethrowers. They were getting tired; beating them shouldn't be too hard. With one Bubble Beam, he let the two of them take the brunt of a full fledged knockout blow. He'd used that move almost as much as Pikachu used Thunderbolt, not that Pikachu couldn't still whup his ass if he so desired to. With Buneary safe, he rushed over to her side.

"Thanks, Pip."

"Not a problem, sis," he replied. "Does Pikachu need our help?"

She grabbed his flipper and led him away. "Axew needs it more. Come on!"

The first one swung its tail at his head. He blocked the blow and gripped the tail tightly, swinging Charmander by his hindquarters into his friend, who'd jumped a little to far into Pikachu's personal space. Immediately after releasing it, another snapped its jaws at his neck. He sidestepped the attack and brought his glowing fist into the Charmander's snout. Pikachu felt cartilage break and bone snap in its face as the blow connected. He backed away, afraid that he'd accidentally killed it, and it fell to the ground, being out of commission in either case.

The two that he'd thrown away were rising to their feet, and the third was contemplating its first move. He picked up on the hesitation quickly and delivered another uppercut, this time in the its stomach. Then, another couple of jabs into the ribs and temple, and Charmander was out like a lightbulb.

He felt the flames tickle his back, giving him enough warning to react. Pikachu rolled out of the way before he'd been completely engulfed by the Flamethrower attack and launched an elemental attack of his own at the challengers. The electricity stored in his cheeks exploded into a Thunderbolt and leapt toward the Charmanders, striking them in their chests. The scales on their bellies did nothing to protect them; they crashed to the dirt, a twitching mess of limbs.

Pikachu was worn to his core by now, but he couldn't quit while seven enemies still remained on their feet. He should have gone to Axew in the first place, but when he heard Buneary shout for him like that…

…

The ground moved under his feet. He had to dance along with it to keep it from leaving him behind, but the strange orange figures were seemingly motionless. He wondered why; could they keep their balance more easily than him? One of them lashed out again, scraping a knuckle across his cheek. Axew didn't know which one of them had just hit him, but he lashed back anyway, missing his target. He fell forward onto his hands, and put up an arm to block the incoming kick. It hit his forearm luckily, but soon he discovered what a bad idea it was as one of the figures lunged at his arm and sank its fangs into it.

He yelped in pain and shook the figure around, but it kept its jaw locked onto him. He backed up onto his feet and pulled the figure back with him, but still, it was attached to his arm. Blood spurted from the wound and onto his face. It dripped on his chest and into the figure's mouth, licking the rest up that remained on its teeth.

Axew reached up to his right tusk with his free hand and held the tip with two fingers. He tested it to make sure it would be strong enough and broke it off at the base. Disregarding the pain, he shoved the wide, flat piece into Figure's mouth.

Figure squealed in surprise, yet still refused to release its hold on Axew's arm. It obviously didn't comprehend what Axew intended to do, so he was forced to demonstrate. He slammed his palm on the bone and let leverage do the rest. Figure's mouth was pried open and he took the opportunity to kick it square in the chest, sending it back into the void that extended beyond his field of vision.

Where was his brother? He needed help, Axew was sure of it. Scrafty was probably getting beaten on or torched or a number of other horrible things, but Axew's legs would not obey him. Another Figure bared its teeth at him, ready to finish him off. If Axew had ever needed an Outrage, it was now, but he wasn't angry enough to summon one.

A gust of wind hit his face. At the same time, he heard a scream come from the sky. Figures turned their heads toward the noise as something barreled into their midst, knocking most of them to the ground. He felt the ground vibrate under him from the force of the impact.

Axew shook his head to clear his thoughts. _Where did that come from? _Blood trickled from his nose, and he felt the scratches on his face to see if anything had been torn off. Thankfully, everything seemed to be in place,

until he saw her.

The Figures had risen and were shuffling toward the Pokémon that had crashed into them. She was not attempting to get away; she was not begging for forgiveness; she was not moving. She was _sleeping_. The change in wind direction had caused her to plummet to the ground, he concluded. If she was dead… no, she wasn't dead. He wouldn't believe it.

Axew got to his feet, but was kicked back onto his ass. A large Charmander bent down and picked him up again before spinning him around to face Emolga. It tucked its arms under his and brought them up behind his head, forcing him to watch as she was grabbed by another Charmander.

"Don't touch her!"

Axew slammed the back of his head into the Charmander's face, staining it with blue paint and blood. He felt its grip loosen and slammed it again, and again. The bones in his shoulders cracked as the grip loosened just enough for him to slip through and rush to Emolga's aid, but another Charmander was waiting for him and swung his arm into Axew's face.

The claws tore through his right eye. Axew collapsed, unconscious.

…

All at once, they were engaged by Pikachu, Piplup, Buneary, and Scrafty. Scrafty almost instantly downed five of them with a flurry of kicks and headbutts. Their bodies flew several yards in every direction.

"_Have you been together long?_"

Emolga unleashed a Discharge, shocking the Charmander that held her from behind.

"_Since the beginning._"

Scrafty ran up to the five he'd beaten, making sure that they wouldn't get back up.

"_Where did you all come from?_"

Pikachu and Piplup teamed up to defeat the last member of the Charmander clan.

"_Unova. We were there when it all started. We saw the eruption._"

Emolga rushed over to Axew and held his bleeding head in her arms.

"_You've been together this entire time?_"

Axew opened his eyes, revealing his gruesome injury.

"_Our trainers traveled together. One of them was from Sinnoh. We decided it would be safer to stick together, since none of us really had a plan._"

Scrafty kneeled down beside Emolga, looking over Axew's wounds.

"_You must have come to Kanto for a reason. Did that Pikachu lead you all here?_"

"_Hold still – this might sting._"

Her vision faded, and Emolga sensed herself becoming light-headed.

"_That should do it. To answer your question, it was his idea to come here in the first place. He said he knew about a place where we could all be safe._"

Soot fell off of his chest, seeming to bathe Axew in black snow. He held back tears with increasing vigilance, but the method was failing.

"_Pachirisu? Are you Dawn's Pachirisu?_"

Emolga and Buneary made no effort to hide their tears. Despite the throbbing in her skull, Emolga kept herself conscious for Axew's sake.

"_Do I know you, Ma'am?_"

"_So, you are then. That means that's Ash's Pikachu out there…_"

Servine interrupted her. "Who are you, and how do you know Pachirisu? I think we deserve some answers."

Pikachu ran her hand through the trio of spikes that adorned her left ear, then spoke.

"Lieutenant General of the _NAGAoM_, Pokémon division, 1st battalion, Codename: Nomad. You can call me 'Spike'."

* * *

_Visit my profile for more information. I hope you enjoyed. Remember to review, fave and follow. It would really help me out. Words this chapter: 4,686  
_


	2. 2

**An Origin Story**

…

"_Spike?"_

_I poked my head into her burrow. It was empty._

"_Don't jump out at me again, Spike! I'm coming in."_

_I stepped into the burrow. The dirt floor was scuffled and scratched, marks that her feet regularly left as indication that she did in fact live there. The journey from the ranch was exhausting – but the chance to see where my girlfriend lived was something that I wouldn't give up for the world. _

_It was my responsibility to make sure she was safe… we may not have been mates yet, exactly. We were trying to take the relationship slowly, which was viewed as strange by my friends. I didn't care. Neither did Spike, but she was young and didn't know much about interacting with other Pokémon. Predators seemed to stray away from her, at least._

"_Spiiiike?"_

_No answer. I looked around. The burrow was small, nowhere for the crafty mouse to hide. The only thing inside was a nest in the center, too small for her to crawl under. I scratched my chin, pondering where she could be. I heard a scuttling sound behind me and resisted the urge to turn._

_Spike had been sneaking up on me unsuccessfully, but I led her on, pretending not to notice for a few seconds. She may have caught on when I started to whistle nonchalantly. Didn't stop her from pouncing on me, regardless of my intentions._

_I pivoted as quickly as possible and caught her in my arms, let her momentum carry her around me, and tackled her to the ground. Her reaction was late, not screaming until she was already pinned by her arms to the dirt, then laughing in relief. _

"_Where were you?"_

"_Out," I said, kissing her._

"_And… did you think about it?" she asked._

"_Yeah," I said, kissing her again._

"_I'll take that as a Yes, then," she said, kissing me back. But I pulled away._

"_Wait."_

"_What?"_

"_I asked some people about it, how it happened."_

_Spike, still under me, became silent. _

"_It's going to be a lot of work, and I was thinking that it may be better if we went back to the ranch together. The Pokémon there are really nice, and the egg would be safer there than out here in your den. I know you still don't know many other…"_

"_I'll do it." she interrupted, answering my question._

"_Really?"_

"_For you."_

_She kissed me again._

"_If we have one."_

"_If? Not when?"_

"_Okaay…" she flicked my nose._

… _when."_

…

**Episode1: A Fresh Perspective**

**Chapter Two: **_Explanations, Part 2 of 3_

…

Spike held onto Axew's arm nervously – she'd never had such a large audience while she performed a transfer, especially complete strangers that had just saved her life. Her body shivered. Pikachu offered her a blanket, but she turned it down, stating that he had been more than kind to her already. Focusing her Aura was difficult enough without all these eyes studying her, and she wanted to get it over with already. From the abuse to the heroism to the fear of being left behind once again, now with a broken foot, she tried her hardest not to screw up in front of her gracious saviors.

"If you don't think you can do it…" Servine began (Spike did not know her name).

"I can do it. I'm just… still kind of shaken up about everything."

Spike refocused. Her hand grazed across the wound, skimming it carefully without pressing down, so the dragon didn't whine again. The gem in her hand glowed, as it did when she'd used it out in the field. Everyone remained silent, while Buneary (Spike knew her from Michina Town, but did not know her name) stood the most rigidly, watching in anticipation.

"Wait!" shouted Axew (Spike doesn't know any of their names yet).

"_Grrr_… What?!" replied Spike. She'd taken enough of this dragon's shit in the past half hour.

"Will it hurt?"

Spike sighed. "Not any more than it felt to **get **the bite."

"Lay off of her, Axew. She's trying to focus," piped Pansage. He went back to grooming his leaves and picking one out occasionally, putting it into a stack for the weak Emolga. She acquired a very serious headwound went she sent herself into a Kamikaze dive to save Axew, and Servine diagnosed a concussion. His leaves supposedly cured Pokémon of exhaustion, from what she'd gathered. Something like that could explain why this group had been able to stay on their feet and outpace any other families of refugees. It was also very lucky for Emolga, because when some people go to sleep with a concussion, they refused to wake up.

Right now, she was leaning up against a tree beside Scrafty and Pachirisu. Spike had already gotten off on the wrong foot with this group; one of their partners almost getting killed for her sake wasn't the best way to kick off a new relationship. She rubbed her hands together. Hopefully, her abilities would more than make amends.

"Here goes nothing!"

Axew jumped, but sank into a calm, blissful silence as pleasure trickled into his body. Spike waved her hand over his forearm like a magician, disintegrating the bite marks as if they were drawn on with cheap pastel. She intensified the treatment for the deeper scratches, traveling over his face and, finally, his chest. Emolga watched through tired eyes the entire time. She grimaced when Spike's hand seemed to drift a little too low on Axew's body, but Pachirisu wouldn't let her budge while she rested. She was grateful that her teammate was healing, but the new female was becoming too friendly, too quickly.

"Okay, now," she said, pulling her hands away. "Open your eye."

"- take it easy, Emolga -"

"Unnng… Do I have to?" Despite the monotonous tone and otherwise wimpy attitude, she observed that Axew seemed to be able to take some heavy abuse. _And mutilating himself to save himself, _she thought, alluding to his missing tusk, _was ingenious, yet risky._

"Do you want to be able to see with that eye again?" Spike replied. "Now open up."

He grunted, but surrendered to her request. Any more stalling and this Pikachu would just go and rip open his eyelid. As she leaned over him, he suddenly noticed how she seemed more slender than his friend, also a Pikachu, and how she had a small mane of yellow fur, puffier than the slick fur on the rest of her body, around her chest. It was almost like an Eevee's, but smaller. Peculiarly, it didn't reach past her chest. Draped over her mane and tied behind her neck was a dark green bandana with elegant white trim lining the edges. Another notable feature was her ear; either the fur was grown out in such a way that gave her the appearance of having spikes or she was born with an abnormally shaped left lobe. The only other distinguishing physical aspects were her tail and her hair.

Axew noticed Spike getting nervous, leaning away from him. She knew what he was doing!

_I'd better hurry up before I start blushing, _he thought, reaching up to his face. _If I'm not already…_

The tail was longer than a Pikachu's regularly got but was thinner at the base, with the heart-shaped tip reaching almost higher up than her head. He didn't notice this immediately, but her tail was also _backwards_; it zig-zagged toward her body, the lightning bolt shape now reversed by perspective. While the length gave her a greater advantage if she knew Iron Tail, the shape would throw her off balance in everyday circumstances, even when walking on two legs. It would probably be less aerodynamic as well, if she decided to walk on four legs. Overall, the patterns of color on her body were similar to Pikachu's.

The hair on her forehead was longer than anywhere else on her body, hanging down near her eyes. She brushed it over constantly, making Axew wonder why she didn't just trim it. It couldn't possibly be a healthy lifestyle choice to keep herself in such a questionable physical state, wearing clothing, growing out her bangs, unless she had a mate that preferred her that way. Then, he sensed the smell on her. He'd smelled it often in the past few months. Autumn was mating season, after all.

"Excuse me, Miss Spike, but do you have a mate?"

She refused to answer, instead asking, "Wh-Why do you ask?"

"Well, you _reek_ of pheromones…"

"Stop," she commanded. Spike shuddered.

"Is something wrong?"

"Spike?" Servine asked, sharing Axew's concern. Spike leaned forward.

"(I don't want to talk about it,)" she whispered into her hand, so that only the two nearest to her heard.

"We understand," Servine replied, placing a spool of thread down beside her. Now that Axew's arm was better, she wouldn't need to stitch it up.

"Will your tooth grow back, Axew?"

He responded without hesitation. "Oh, yeah! It'll take, like, a week at the most. I hope I don't need to pry anything else open until then, though," Axew touched the tip of his left and only remaining tusk. "I kinda like this tooth where it is."

Pikachu spoke next, approaching the three and being followed closely by Buneary.

"Spike, Buneary says she wants to…" he threw his thumb over his shoulder, "show you something."

"Definitely, not a problem… were you injured, Buneary?"

She hid behind her scarf, like she did back at the clearing.

"She, err, wanted to show you in private."

"Fine, but I wanted to ask you something first, Pikachu."

He flattened his ears against his skull, a sign of hostility.

"I think you should just check on Buneary while you still have the chance. It's going to get dark out soon, and we have somewhere to be."

"- Pansage, gimme another leaf. Emolga's drowsing off again. -"

"By the way," he finished, somehow reminded of Emolga's condition, "we would appreciate it if you could take a look at Emolga's head, too."

"Don't ask her to do too much, Pikachu. She's been through a lot today," said Servine. "I think the only thing Emolga needs is to stay off of her feet. Or, if we could stop by a town to find something for Axew's eye and Scrafty's burns, that would be great."

Buneary lowered her scarf, peering over the top at Pikachu. He was solemnly scooting his foot in the dirt, glancing back at her occasionally.

"I don't know… it would seriously take us off course."

"If Axew's eye gets infected –"

"That won't happen, if we can fix it here."

"We don't have anything to use for bandaging."

"How do you know there will be anything left in a town?"

Buneary and the others were starting to become awkward. Before Servine and Pikachu got further into the argument over the group's welfare, Spike made an excuse to leave.

"How about _I _check on Buneary, and _you _two can stay here and decide what you're… doing."

"Sounds good to me!" Buneary agreed, stepping away from Pikachu.

"I guess that's okay…" Pikachu conceded, lowering his ears.

"I'll put a splint on that foot when you get back, okay?" said Servine, once again letting her medical input mask her ulterior emotions.

"Come on, Buneary," Spike said, taking her paw. She limped away, leading Buneary behind a group of large, overbearing trees.

…

Out of sight.

Now accompanied by nothing sans the other and the wilderness surrounding them, Buneary and Spike stared blankly at a tree as if they expected the organism to initiate conversation. They were afraid, for different reasons between each other. Spike finally broke the tension.

"What did you want to show me?"

Buneary didn't answer.

"Buneary?"

"What?... oh, were you talking to me?"

They both swung their heads, sweeping the area with their eyes.

Spike chuckled.

"There's no one else here, Buneary."

"Yeah, I know. I've just never shown this to anyone else. Besides Pikachu and Piplup. And Servine, but she couldn't do anything about it."

"About what?"

Buneary brushed her hand over her right ear, folded against her head to protect from any appearance of abnormality.

"This," she said, extending her right ear to match the left.

But they were far from identical.

"**What happened?!**" Spike gasped.

Two tears in the flesh. Holes, both the same size, both going straight through the membrane like she'd put her ear inside of a hole punch. A very _large_ hole punch, one that seared the edges and veins of anything they cut.

The first hole was closer to the base of her ear and inside the pink membrane, and the veins that normally ran through faded against the surface of her skin, leaving skinny red-lined scars. The second hole was higher up, halfway to the tip, and resided outside of the membrane on the furry, brown frame. It was more noticeable; the dark colors contrasted the bright, green foliage that hid inside the rupture.

"Coooooool…" Spike let the word slip.

"Yeah, that's what Servine said too."

"And you want me to use my Catalyst to fix it?"

"That's what you call it?"

She held the stone in her hand, not letting it out of her sight.

"Yup. So, how did all this happen?

Buneary told her. It was the first time she'd told anyone in an entire year, when it happened.

"Pikachu feels real guilty about it, that's why he was sort of angry earlier…"

"**He **did it?"

"**NO!** No, he… he just thinks it's his fault, that's all. And it totally isn't his fault! He even tried to protect me, but… Maybe I should start from the beginning.

"When Mount Urteil erupted, and all the humans started evacuating, we were at the docks with our trainers - in the city, at least. We had a… *ahem*…

"… someone we knew was in the hospital. And then, you know what happened. The Pokeballs malfunctioned, and we all thought Team Rocket created an eruption and used the distraction to take everyone's Pokémon.

"But they weren't just running away. They were **attacking** their trainers. It was awful…

"But someone figured out that, if you released your Pokémon, they wouldn't attack you. Our trainers, there were four of them, released us, so we were technically free. But we didn't want to leave them, not most of us. The ones of us that stayed behind followed our former trainers down to the docks to evacuate on the ships.

"We had to fight our way there. Our trainers would never have made it without us. But when we got down to the docks, they were flooded with crowds of people and our trainers ran down ahead of us to tell them to release their Pokémon. When we tried to follow them, an officer started shooting at us.

"I remember waking up. Pikachu and I were the only ones left at the docks, and he had me lying up against something soft. He told me that it was just us left, and that he was sorry he let me get shot.

"I didn't know what 'getting shot' meant, but apparently it was when that police officer started throwing those metal things at us. Sorry, I'm… I'm rambling… but that's how I got this," she concluded, pointing up at her bullet wounds.

"No, keep going! What happened?"

Spike was leaning on her chin with her arm, feet behind her on the ground.

"Okay! It actually feels good to get this all out…

"So, our trainers were missing and I didn't know what happened to my friends. Pikachu said they all scattered when we started getting shot at, and then the other Pokémon, the ones who didn't get released by their trainers on time, they came in screaming "Psychotic!", but all the humans heard is what they usually hear.

"Pikachu said he lost track of his trainer in the crowd because he stayed…" she let a quivering breath escape her throat, rubbing her arms together for warmth.

"… stayed behind to look after me with Piplup. He was heartbroken, and didn't talk much for a long time after that.

"By now, there were a bunch of dead people and Pokémon above us – we were hiding under the docks. It was just me, Pikachu and Piplup. Piplup said we should go back into the city to look for our friends. Pikachu didn't care about anything, and I was going to go wherever he went, so that's what we did."

Buneary waited.

"That was the first time Pikachu killed a Pokémon.

"I guess it was just the shock of his trainer abandoning him that made him do it. Snivy said Pikachu was suffering from 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder'…"

"Who's Snivy?" asked Spike.

"Oh… that was Servine's name before she evolved. She's one of the Unovan starter Pokémon, just like Dewott when he was an Oshawott."

"Dewott?"

"Oh! Geez, I keep forgetting that you don't know… Dewott was the one who started the distraction. He's blue and has black ears and hands. He also has this sash that goes around his waist that's dark blue, and it has buckles for his scalchops. Dewott uses those as weapons.

"He doesn't really hang around us much, just when we stop for the night. Any other time, he stays in the forest and scouts ahead, or if we aren't in the woods, he stays close to Servine and Pikachu. It was him, Pikachu, Servine, and Scrafty that all used to belong to this one trainer.

"Me, Piplup and Pachirisu all belonged to another.

"Then there's Axew and Emolga. They both belonged to someone.

"Pansage was the only one of his trainer's Pokémon to come with us.

"It took us an entire week of searching through the city, and we only found seven of our friends. The humans were all either gone or dead by then. Soot from the volcano was falling down on our heads like snow, and none of us knew what to do. We'd all forgotten what it was like to live without being ordered around.

"So Pikachu did," Buneary continued. "He said he'd been to a place where we would all be safe. It has its own personal guardians that keep out anything that it thinks will be dangerous, but it lets nice Pokémon inside. When he said it was in Kanto, we all lost hope, but Pikachu said it was the only choice we had. Living under a 'cloud of ash' for the rest of our lives wasn't an option.

"That's what he said, but I knew what he meant.

"We've been through hell since then. Pikachu just got stronger and stronger until it was impossible for him to hold back anymore. I was afraid that if he didn't evolve eventually, he would have a heart attack or something. When he couldn't hold back, he ended up killing any Pokémon that he fought, no matter how much he tried to just… to just…" she whimpered. "To just hurt them. Just to protect us.

"Everyone else started to think that Pikachu was crazy. Servine put him on a medication, but he became too weak. We started to realize that we couldn't make any further unless Pikachu started killing Pokémon again, and we took him off of the meds. But he got even more powerful after that and grew, maybe, **six **inches taller because of the side effects of being taken off of the supplement. Pikachu… he was in some pain for awhile…

"I felt so guilty for using him like that… we never should have tried to drug him in the first place. But he's still cheery and tried to keep everyone's spirits up, even helping when we see random Pokémon that are hurt or in trouble. I love him so much–"

Buneary slapped her paws over her mouth and squealed.

"That's not what I meant to say! **Please** don't tell him I said that!"

Spike leaned over, looking through the branches at the group opposite of them. "I think they can hear you."

They had their heads turned in her direction. "Yeah, they heard you, all right. **Don't worry! We're all okay over here!**" she shouted at the eavesdroppers.

"(He still thinks I got over my crush on him. You can't let him know I still like him.)"

Buneary and Spike got into a competitive whispering match, determined to say each word more quietly than the last.

"(Why not? Now would be the perfect time to make a move on him.)"

"(Now? Now is horrible. Never would be okay with me.)"

"(Why are you so shy around him?)"

"(He's cute, in a scary way. Don't you think he's cute?)"

"(He's gorgeous, Buneary. If I didn't already know my boyfriend, I would ask him out…)"

"**HEY!**"

Spike and Buneary, having been fazed in girlish gossip, screeched in terror, followed by a fit of coughing from Spike, her lung still slightly bruised from where the Aura didn't focus itself enough.

"You… *coughcough*… scared the *hack* shit out of me…"

"How much of our adventure did Buneary tell you about?" asked Servine, snickering for scaring the two females engrossed in conversation.

"She… *lastcough,ahem*… she was showing me her ear and told me how she got it, and… I guess we lost track of time."

"If you're going to fix it, you'd better hurry up. Pikachu has something he wants to say to you."

"Ditto," said Spike, provoking Buneary to flinch. "Not **that**, Buneary."

"Oh… right."

"Servine, do you have anything I can use as a substitute?" Spike asked.

"What do you need to substitute?"

"I can't make flesh regenerate, and the veins don't seem to be flowing blood consistently through her ear. I need something to plug up them up with, like a light metal."

"I… we don't have anything like that with us. The only things I have are some empty bottles…"

"Plastic wouldn't look very good. Sorry, Buneary."

"It's okay…" she said, disappointed. "I knew it was a long-shot."

"Don't give up, Bun. You guys said you were going to a town, right?" she directed at Servine.

"We would, if we had a map."

"Why didn't you ask me? I know the perfect place."

"What are you talking about?" asked Pikachu, poking his head around the tree. Buneary wondered how many more people would intrude before this was over.

"Spike says she can take us to a town!" Servine burst out.

"Can she heal Buneary's ear?"

"Pikachu…" Buneary said shyly, fumbling with her scarf.

"Not completely, but it'll look better once I get done with it," she answered.

"Pachirisu said lunch was ready. Spike, you can have some if you want. Servine, how is her foot looking?"

"It's just fine, Pikachu. She might need our help walking for long distances, though."

"Speaking of long distances," Pikachu said, "where exactly do you live, Spike? And I don't mean Michina Town. We aren't time-traveling to take you there," he finished with a smile.

Spike did not return the smile.

"For the last year, I've been in captivity, being used to track down my own kind using my own Aura so that the group of Charmanders that you defeated earlier could effectively wipe out every Pikachu in Kanto. Before you came along, I was certain that I was the only Pikachu left in existence. As of now, I have no home. The only lead that I have is my boyfriend."

Spike stood up, straightening the green bandana around her neck.

"And to answer your Axew's question, I 'reek' of pheromones because a certain Charmander, the leader, whom I killed, took advantage of me on a regular basis. This morning, in fact."

Servine held in her sympathy, choking on her own tongue.

"My name, Spike, was given to me by my mate. Though we were not technically 'mates', we were in the process of conceiving an egg. He resided in a town not far from here, at a ranch where he and his trainer's Pokémon lived. **Pallet Town**."

Buneary gasped.

"- isn't that -"

"- shhh, Buneary -"

"Please, continue," said Pikachu, politely.

"His name was Eli…"

"Can you tell us what happened at Pallet Town?" asked Pikachu.

"I wouldn't know. They attacked me in my den outside of the limits, back when they were just regular civilian Pokémon and not crazy Psychopaths. Eli was coming by that day to take me to Pallet, but I guess his plan changed when the news started to spread. I promised myself that the first thing I would do was go back to look for him."

"So, the Charmanders were just regular Pokémon that kidnapped you?"

"That's what I thought at first, but then I realized how stupid it sounded. Thirty **wild **Charmanders?"

"What's stupid about that?"

"Charmanders are rare to be seen in the wild. And being right outside of a settlement, it was a statistical impossibility that they remained uncaptured. The only thing I can think of is they escaped a breeding facility, and since they were all male, it could explain everything."

"You can't have had _no _friends when you came here," Buneary said with a yawn building in her throat.

"When I came here, I was accompanied by four of my friends from Michina Town. We were all sent to different towns across the five regions: Kanto, Hoenn, Johto, Sinnoh, and Unova. The five original Aura Soldiers of Time and Space. We were the first battalion of the New Aura Guardian Army of Mew."

She adopted a militaristic tone, raising her hand up to her eye. "**Nomad**: Green scarf, Kanto. **Sandlot**: Blue scarf, Sinnoh. **Kilroy**: Red scarf, Hoenn. **Lochtly**: Black scarf, Unova. **Thebes**: Gold scarf, Johto."

Buneary shook her arm, and she popped out of her trance.

"Sorry," she said. "Two years on, I still can't get it out of my head. Heheh. But you see what I mean. Our mission was to start assembling an army, looking for people with an aptitude for Aura and training them to use it. We didn't know why, until…"

They were all waiting patiently for her to finish, not knowing that she already had. After several seconds, Pikachu coughed, earning Spike's attention.

"And… uh… you think that Eli will be at Pallet Town?"

Pikachu paused.

"And I can't make it on my own."

Spike replied, turning to him with pleading eyes.

"And we need the meds," Servine added.

They looked back and forth between each other, the four Pokémon having decided their next move.

Buneary gazed expectantly at Pikachu.

He nodded to her. She grinned.

"We're going to Pallet Town!" she shouted.

* * *

_Chapter Two uploaded on October 21st, 2012, 10:36 PM Central Standard Time. Visit my profile for more information. Be sure to review, fave and follow. It would really help me out. Words this chapter: 4,606.  
_


	3. 3

**An Origin Story**

…

After the announcement of the group's new destination and a brief three-star lunch of berries collected and replenished over the past several days by one hyperactive and overly excitable squirrel of questionable gender (she'd decided he was a male), Servine finished her examinations of the five injured Pokémon.

Pikachu and Buneary were trying to make Spike more comfortable around her new traveling-companions, but she didn't seem to want to get to know any of them. Enough time around Axew would fix that; he had a way of bringing out the lighter side in anyone he lives around. He and the clique of the other wounded were often seen together the most, ironically, Scrafty being Axew's 'little' brother and Emolga being the only other of his trainer's Pokémon that they'd recovered after the eruption.

"Paper beats rock!"

Scrafty and Axew were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. It was one of many games that they played to pass the time.

"Playing this with Pachirisu is funner," grumbled Scrafty.

"He doesn't have fingers, Scrafty."

"_Duh…_ come on! Seventy-six outta one hundred and fifty-one!"

Servine sat in a comfortable branch of tall tree, letting her tail soak in the sunlight. The Pokémon below her waited for a sign, some _indication_ of their missing comrade while they discussed Dewott's disappearance among themselves. She dipped her vine into a small container of nail polish, scavenged from a human's pocketbook and mixed into a large water bottle, and flicked her journal to the newest possible page.

She wrote.

_Date: ? (note to self, find out the date) Late November._

_New cases: Emolga has a simple concussion and dislocated shoulder. Cause: being a hero, one of the rare cases in which she risked her own well-being for… I'm not sure why, yet. It has something to do with Axew (possible attraction?!). Diagnosed treatment: Keep her conscious. Keep her near Axew: that'll spark her up. (pun count: already up to six.)_

_Axew got the worst of it, but Spike's Aura (a topic I hope to discuss thoroughly with her (and with Pikachu)) seemed to have healed most of the lesser scrapes and bruises. I took a look at his eye… it wasn't pretty. Three long tears along the cornea were scary enough, but I found a piece of the Charmander's claw still inside of the membrane. Spike said she couldn't remove it. If we don't do something about it soon, it will have been too late. He could lose the eye (note: don't let Scrafty know)._

_Scrafty's burns weren't too serious. Either me or Pikachu needs to talk to him about what happened at the clearing… he nearly got everyone killed. The same could be said about Emolga, or even Axew… I don't know. We'll probably end up not doing anything, again._

Servine rolled her eyes.

_Pansage's left arm is healing. Not much to say about that, but it would be nice to find a sling at Pallet Town for it. I think the humans made slings his size… I can't be sure, though. _

_Spike's foot now has a splint on it. I was forced to use two sticks and the thread I would have used to _She dipped her vine _stitch Axew's arm up. I can only imagine how uncomfortable it must be. Considering just removing the splint altogether, since Buneary volunteered to help her walk._

_Her black eye isn't swelling anymore, and her scrapes are completely healed. I'm starting to get jealous of that… whatever it is. She says we all have it, but then why can only she use it?_

_Once again, looking forward to the talk I'm going to have with her. Saving a special page for all of the Aura stuff I'm going to need to take notes on._

She shut the book. Servine looked behind, above, and under herself to check for spies, and reopened the book.

She stared at nothing for a moment, but it passed. A dead, orange leaf fell onto the page. She lowered her pointed vine and wrote again, careful not to mark in her journal.

She exhaled. Keep going, you've done this before.

_It could have been something in the Pokémon food, or the one of the properties of belonging to a Pokeball, or even being around all of the working technology._

_But whatever it was, the variables all changed too quickly to determine, it's gone now. I've started pollinating, so the heat can't be far off, but if we can get to a Pokémon Center today, then I should be able to find something, anything, with MegAce inside of it before my heat hits. _

_Axew getting hurt was a blessing in disguise; gives me the perfect excuse to make a detour when we get to a Center. Mating season in Hoenn was a nightmare… all those pheromones in the air were about to drive me and Emolga crazy. Too bad she can't read, or she and Buneary could help me look for PokeStat when we get to Pallet Town. I wonder what they – scratch that, what Emolga would do without me. Buneary still hasn't had her first heat yet, strangely, but that's probably for the best._

_(Final Note: **stay away from YKW so heat isn't induced prematurely.**)_

Servine blushed as she finished the last line, but she couldn't lie to herself. It had occurred before, and she'd barely survived then.

Thank Arceus that Emolga was there to stop her… she almost did **that **with You Know Who… her relationship with him has been shaky since then, mostly because she refused to look him in the eyes lest she burst out into tears and apologies.

The leaf that she'd written on drifted away, the wind stealing it from her eyesight. It floated, a crinkled, brown, dead thing with more knowledge on it than an entire forest could possibly contain. Servine was sure that it would go unnoticed.

She placed a strip of plastic wrap on the wet "ink" and fit it around the edges. Now she could shut the book without smearing other pages.

"(Psst,)" something whispered from behind.

"Go away," she hissed at it.

"Servine…"

The voice pleaded with her. But she would not negotiate.

"Now isn't a good time, Oshawott, I'm –"

"- my name is **Dewott**. Or even Oshy, just not 'Oshawott'. It makes me feel like a toddler when you say that."

She suppressed an insult. Servine felt the branch she was in shake before the sound of Oshy's sneeze reached her ears.

"You… **Achoo!**… pollinating?" he asked.

"Y-Yeah…" she stuttered, but with confidence.

"Then I'll be quick."

She unraveled her vine and let the journal fall to the ground below her, thumping softly on the grass but clacking against the tree trunk, alerting the other Pokémon.

"Where were you? We were all waiting…"

"You know better than that. I can take care of myself."

She knew that he could protect himself - it was a question of senseless curiosity.

As time passed, Servine considered apologizing. Perhaps she had been too hasty… nevermind that. It was the hormones talking.

"I found something."

He readjusted his weight, shaking more leaves free.

"I don't care," she replied. _So much for apologizing, _she thought.

In reality, Servine cared immensely, but she was also a pathological liar. Her eye twitched.

"You're such a bad liar. Ugh…" he scoffed, "maybe I should just go."

His bluff worked.

"D-Don't!" she sputtered. Dewott snickered, loud enough for her to hear.

"**Servine?**" called Pansage from below. He aimed his voice into the tree, trying to find the green snake amongst the changing leaves. After catching her attention, he continued, "**Your book-thing fell open!**"

Her vine lowered itself down to Pansage's eye-level. He held the book open, scanning intrusively through the pages, but the journal was taken from him before he got to the last entry. The vine and the diary vanished.

The red-covered notebook parted through the branches, unveiling itself to the two Pokémon.

"'D-Don't!'" Dewott mocked Servine as the journal returned to her hand.

"Sh-Shut up." Curse that damned, goofy stutter of hers. "Leave me alone."

"But if I leave, I can't show you what I found. I think you'll really wanna –"

"**SERVINE?**"

Geez, how many more Pokémon were going to interrupt them?...

Wait… this is good, she realized. More Pokémon means she doesn't have to pay attention to _this _jackass.

"**SERVINE, I KNOW YOU'RE UP THERE!**"

Servine shouted back. "**Don't worry, Spike, I'm okay!**"

Spike waited before replying.

"**I didn't **_**ask**_** if you were okay!**"

Servine bit her tongue.

"**Is there anyone up there with you?**" Spike asked.

"**Dw- uh, no! It's just me up here! Alone!**"

Another damned pause. Servine hated not knowing what others were thinking, but then…

"**Pikachu said we were heading for Pallet Town soon, so… **_**hurry up**_**!**" Spike finished.

"What's she doing up there, Spike?" asked Buneary, supporting Spike by her shoulders.

"I swear to _Mew_ I sensed someone else's Aura up there."

"You… it was probably Dewott, he usually only stays around her, but…"

"Yeah?" Spike asked.

"How do you _do _that? You can use Aura like… a sixth sense?"

Servine sighed. "Well? Are you going to say something?"

No answer. She shivered from the quietness.

"Joshua?"

If she had hair, it would have stood on end. She started to cry. Then she got angry, but she continued the tears. She'd chased away her only friend… that was a lie, she told herself, she had many friends, but none as close as Dewott.

The breeze pulled at something on her back. Servine pulled at it also, and it came loose like fresh glue.

Or fresh ink.

Dewott always _did _remember to leave her a present whenever he instantly disappeared. In her hand, an orange leaf with a pathetic love-letter scribbled on it.

She sniveled a little, but stopped crying otherwise.

… _stay away from You Know Who…_

…

**Episode1: A Fresh Perspective**

**Chapter Three: **_Premonitions, Part 3 of 3 in Introductions_

…

From the crest of the hill, Pikachu and company looked out onto the horizon. Following the river down into the valley would bring them right into the shadow of their destination: the former lab of Professor Oak, the renowned scientist and owner of the ranch where Spike's future mate would assumedly reside.

Servine provided the concussed Emolga with a means of transportation from atop her back, using her medical pack as a makeshift saddle. Axew walked closely beside them, but finding new topics of conversation for her was challenging.

Now the sun was dipping, and the forest would soon contain more dangers than of the Psychotic nature. Emolga spotted the windmill on the horizon.

"Do you see it, Pikachu? Right there." She pointed.

"Where did you say it was?" Axew asked.

"We should have stopped already, Pikachu." Buneary held Spike's hand. Servine had taken the splint off of her foot – it'd been doing more harm than good.

"But we're so close. And I don't see a cave around here."

"It's been **four days **since we stopped. We can only rely on Pansage for so long before –"

"Times are too dangerous, Bun. Trust me, we'll be safer at the lab."

_He called me Bun!_ Buneary reached for her fluff, but Spike's Iron Grip held her right paw tightly. She compromised by, instead, pulling her orange scarf over her nose. "Buneary?" asked Spike.

"Sorry," she said, revealing her red cheeks under the cloth. "It's cold out here."

_She's from Sinnoh. Those Pokémon are built for cold weather, especially Buneary. _Spike thought for a minute…

"Oh! The Pikachu!" she realized. Buneary jumped – Spike had screamed in her bad ear.

"_What_?" asked Pikachu.

"Spike!" yelled Buneary.

All eyes were pointed at her.

"_What_ about Pikachu?" asked Emolga, chuckling.

"That… um…"

_Don't panic, and don't give Buneary away. Change the subject._

"… he should mate?"

Buneary's jaw dropped, hidden underneath her scarf.

"Eheheh… what?"

"Wh-What I meant! I mean, that's _not_ what I meant. It's just, he and I are the last Pikachu –"

"No!" responded Pikachu. Axew came unhinged and collapsed laughing.

"Not with _me_, idiot! I mean with –"

_No. Don't fuck this up even more with her. _Buneary was on the ground. Spike thought she was crying.

"Ahem… if we really _are _the last Pikachu, which is entirely possible, then it would be irresponsible of us _not _to mate."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, buuuut… I'm not mating with you."

"I wasn't talking about us two together! You don't need two Pokémon of the same species to be able to breed," she said. Pikachu stared at her, and the rest stared at him, waiting for his response.

"Really?" he asked.

Buneary sat up.

"I didn't know that," he said.

Now Spike's jaw dropped, less drastically than Buneary's.

"Are you telling the truth or just trying to save face -"

Spike exploded.

"**It's common knowledge! I thought you were traveling with a fucking Pokémon Breeder, how could you **_**NOT**_** know that?!**"

Shocked, Pikachu forcefully rebounded:

"**I never listened to Brock, I just fought his Pokémon and ate his food!**"

Spike and Pikachu stood glaring at each other. Pikachu considered using Leer, but Pachirisu broke the tension.

"You actually ate his food?" asked Pachirisu. "I was always scared to. The guy never even opened his eyes."

Spike kept a stolid expression. A shadow rested on her face, giving her air much more intensity than Pikachu's, who…

… who was suppressing a laugh. His Leer cracked, and so the rift between him and Spike slammed shut.

"Ahaha - damnit, Pachirisu! I'm tryin' to be menacing here!" he scolded.

_Thank you, Pachirisu, _thought Spike.

"Hey, it's the truth!" Pachirisu said.

"Pfft, _men_," added Servine.

Spike looked around. The Unovian Pokémon seemed confused while Piplup, Pachirisu, Pikachu, and Buneary laughed at the memory of a long-dead or missing Pokémon Breeder whose eyes were always somewhat closed.

Buneary nudged her arm. "You don't have to try so hard, Spiky."

"Spiky?"

She giggled. "Yeah."

Buneary wrapped her right arm around the back of Spike's neck and took Spike's arm on her shoulder, grabbing it with her other paw.

"As payback, you can tell me about _your_ boyfriend when we get to Pallet Town," Buneary said.

"If we're lucky, I can just introduce him to you."

The others were recomposing themselves.

"Come on, everyone," said Pikachu, "we shouldn't stop for too long. I'm afraid of what might happen when those Charmanders wake up."

Pikachu caught Buneary's eye, but she looked away.

"Do you need help?" he asked.

"I _need _you to trust me," Buneary said. "I can carry her on my own."

"You always _did _like hugging Pikachus," said Servine, slapping her mouth shut with her vine immediately after. What made her say that?

"Don't even go there, Servine!" yelled a (smiling) Emolga.

"Hey, Spike, you said you have a mate, right?" asked Axew.

"Nnnn… yes? It's complicated. We haven't _technically _mated yet, bu-"

"But you and the Charmander mated, right?" he interrupted.

In his subconscious, he began to walk. As Pikachu and the others soon realized, they were also walking with the exception of Spike, who was being carried by a suspiciously strong rabbit-Pokémon. The river was to their left, and the other side would be about 17 meters across for a good length of time and distance ahead. Their conversations broke each other up. Pikachu had drifted near the other males: Piplup, Scrafty, Pachirisu, and Pansage. Axew, however, stayed behind Servine and Emolga to talk with Spike and Buneary.

"I like to think of it as… he mated with me, but _I _didn't mate with _him_," she said, after carefully planning her words.

Sadly, Axew was fonder of talking, not thinking.

"How does it happen?"

Spike stumbled on her words. "How does… how does _what _happen?"

"Mating. How does it happen?" he asked again.

"Uhh…"

Spike was speechless. The young dragon didn't know the birds and the bees. These Pokémon were obviously more sheltered than she thought.

Then, Buneary spoke. "Yeah… how _does _it happen?"

But she didn't think they were _that _sheltered. Did the snake hear them? It seemed like, for a moment, Servine tilted her head back to hear their conversation.

"Bun, how old are you?" Spike asked. She blew at her bangs, which were blocking her vision.

"Err… How old do you think I am?"

"I mean it. How old are you? I _really _want to know."

Axew rubbed his broken eye. He wanted to be a part of a conversation. _Maybe I should go talk to Emolga… Servine said to stay near her anyway. _But it looked like Servine had increased the distance between them. He could see Emolga chatting happily yet cautiously, as if she wanted no one else to hear. Axew didn't know the difference, but he knew not to eavesdrop when Servine wanted to have a 'private talk' with Emolga. "Girl stuff," is what she had told him.

…

"And one time, Axew was talking about – well, I don't remember, but the tree we were sitting under was an apple tree."

"Mm-hmm," Servine nodded.

"… and an apple fell onto his head! I grabbed it, and he was like, 'Why do apples fall? I don't _just_ mean apples, I mean everything. They _all_ fall.' I didn't know what he meant, but it stuck in my head for some reason. They _all _fall."

Emolga had been prattering at - not _with…_ _at _- Servine for a few minutes now. She decided to make herself comfortable, since talking was the best way to keep squirrels awake.

"He was talking about _gravity_, Emolga."

"Wanna know what happened next?" she asked.

"Lemme guess… and then you ate the apple, right?" Servine asked.

"Noooooo… we split it."

Emolga seemed offended, but Servine was genuinely surprised by her answer.

"Wait. You _split _an apple?"

"Yup!"

"With Axew?"

"Yuh-huh."

The normally smooth ride became bumpy for Emolga. It took her a second to comprehend that Servine was laughing at something.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"It's just cute, you and Axew."

"Oh, like you and your boy-toy Dewott?"

Servine got her infamous, 'I will fucking _kill _you', stare and pointed it at the backpack-rider.

"If you're _jealous, _then say so, Servine."

"What should I be jealous of?" she asked, but the strain of keeping an undisturbed tone was too much for her to handle.

"Well, he liked _me _first, then he liked _Buneary_, he liked _Meleotta_, and he never even _looked _at you until you evolved."

"And why did he look at _you_? Because of your 'fantastic personality'?"

Emolga huffed.

"Not like _you _have much going for you."

"_Watch it, _Emolga –"

But Emolga didn't care. She leaned in **real **close to Servine's head and whispered:

"(I bet Dewott only likes **virgins**.)"

…

The "girl stuff" behind him was beginning to bore him. Spike was using a bunch of words that he didn't understand, so Axew was starting to sneak away from them and towards Emolga. He thought about his plan to jump out and scare her and Servine, and eventually decided not to. If Emolga had a concussion… he didn't know whether surprising her was a good idea.

Actually, the stars were coming out for once. He'd never gotten a chance to watch them when they passed through Hoenn – they were either under the Ash Cloud or inside the caverns, looking for each other.

Axew never noticed the sky before then. Not at night. He always thought the sky went black, but it wasn't. It was just _really _dark. The shade of blue it was looked pretty. And the stars weren't even completely white. They were a little brown here, a little yellow there, but that could have been his one eye being hazy again.

Nevertheless, they were neutral, just like Pikachu. He never made his side in an argument clear, he just did what he thought was best for him and his friends.

Axew was confusing himself. Someone does something to help only himself, but it breaks some kind of rule that the good guys make. Does that make the good guys the "good guys" or the "bad guys"? Is the sky fighting? Black and White were always compared to Night and Day, but neither was completely Black or White. There was always the Grey Area. In this case, the Blue Area.

So why do Black and White exist? One was for right, one was for wrong, but what _defines _wrong?

Emotions, most likely. But emotions were abstract, and they could change, too. So it must have been actions, or words, that determined Right and Wrong, because when you said or did something, it never went away.

Right and Wrong, Black and White, Good and Evil, those were all ugly. The Blue Area was pretty, and it made more sense than Black and White. Maybe that's why the Psychos wore blue, because it was prettier than Black or White.

He wondered how blue would look on Emolga.

"- if you're _jealous, _then say so, Servine. -"

Axew, accidently, had walked close enough to hear bits of small talk from Servine and Emolga.

"- what should I be jealous of? -" asked Servine. Axew didn't know what to think, which he despised anyway, so he continued to listen.

"- well, he liked _me _first, then he liked _Buneary_, he liked _Meloetta_, and he never even _looked _at you until you evolved. -"

Okay, so they were arguing about something. Was Emolga the Black or the White?

Axew knew he never liked Buneary or Meloetta, but he _did _know that Piplup and Dewott, when he was an Oshawott, both liked Meloetta for a few days. He used to think that Piplup liked Buneary, but that was before they took the Test at the top of Urteil Mountain. And Oshawott _did _like Emolga for awhile, so they must have been arguing about Dewott.

"- and why did he look at _you_? Because of your 'fantastic personality'? -"

He didn't like that Servine was insulting Emolga. Axew knew she _probably_ deserved it, but…

Wait… if they were arguing about Dewott, does that mean that Emolga likes him? He knew Servine liked Dewott, though he had no idea why, but Emolga liking Dewott was as bad as…

"- not like _you _have much going for you. -"

Axew slyly slid up to Servine. He had to choose right when to make himself known.

"_Watch it, _Emolga."

Emolga leaned up to Servine. Axew took the chance to walk alongside them while they were distracted.

She whispered. Axew didn't understand the last word… fur-jins?... but nothing good would come of Emolga being so close to Servine. He chose to make his move.

_Okay, opening statement: what do I say?_

_Maybe I should start with a question. Those are funny sometimes. Like, "What are you talking about?" or, "What's a furjin?"_

_What **is **a furjin? Maybe it means mammals. That would make sense, since Emolga's trying to hurt Servine. I **think **Emolga's a mammal, anywa-_

"_**FUCK YOU!**_"

Servine had turned her head to the right and screeched in Axew's face. The exclamation was meant to reach Emolga, but he'd stepped in the line of fire and shielded her from it.

Axew fell onto his ass for the second time that day, but he wasn't able to block the next attack for Emolga.

The vines on her neck shot straight back. Emolga was lifted into the air.

Servine acted as if Axew hadn't even _been _there. It would be just the three of them in this confrontation. Buneary and Spike lagged behind a fair distance, the other males were far ahead of him, and Dewott was still out in the woods.

Emolga hovered for a moment, Servine's vine binding her loosely, but the chance for her to escape passed before she recognized it. Her vine unwound downward, giving Emolga a spinning start, and it caught on her arm and slung her body into Axew like a helpless ragdoll.

He had begun to sit up, propping himself on his elbow, but the impact forced him back down to the ground.

After the dust settled, Servine's vine snaked over them both as the concussed female's tail flitted down onto its side and onto Axew's outstretched hand. He blinked. Emolga had curled up into a ball and flattened her large, round ears sideways on her head. She closed her eyes, hoping that the dragon would not fail to protect her again.

His chest rose. Her body was frailer, but not much smaller, so her head rested motionless on the side of Axew's snout. He held his arms upward. Hopefully Servine would accept his symbol of surrender – he and Emolga were injured enough as it was.

Emolga opened her eyes.

"- **Servine! **-"

The others would converge on them quickly, but it didn't appear that they would be struck again. Emolga mumbled something.

"_What_?" asked Axew.

"My h-heaaad…" she repeated.

Axew reached to the base of her ear, her _left _ear, the one he was able to see, and petted it gently, not sure if that was where the concussion was. He wanted to discourage her from moving because the vine still lingered, like Servine was planning something. Axew brought his other arm around her back and grabbed it – he didn't want it to wrap itself on Emolga again.

Her vine slid out of his hand so fast and unexpectedly that his hand nearly smacked Emolga on the spine. She yelped – Axew didn't know why he hadn't registered this earlier, but she had also yelped when she crashed into him, like when she'd crashed into the Charmanders. He hoped that she didn't have another concussion.

"Lola, stay awake. Please. You can't sleep right now. You can't go to sleep yet, Emolga."

He pleaded with her until she hushed his requests.

"I just need… I just neeeed… a _kiss_."

_What?_

Her hands sprung out. The air in his chest escaped, and Emolga's silly face loomed over him. The drunken expression threatened dumb, regrettable actions. Luckily, like so many of them, Emolga knew very little about mating rituals.

So instead, she lowered her head.

Her mouth tapped his nose. She pulled back up, closed her eyes again, and rolled off of Axew with the same stupid smile glued to her face.

…

_**Pallet Town.**_

The far-drifting black ashes of the eruption traveled over the cloudless, blue horizon and littered the once populated bastion of humanity. On the hill in the distance was a house and a windmill. The brown structure was crumbling and in much worse condition than the town itself.

The front door was closed. Despite being secured, a clearly-experienced locksmith had expertly devised a way to blow an enormous yet subtle hole-like formation at the center of mass. Access would not be hindered to anyone who required it.

_**Breaking News: Professor Oak of Pallet Town Arrested**_

_The inventor of the widely-used 'Pokeball' will be charged with **terrorism** after the destruction of several cities and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children and adults caused by the worldwide malfunction of his product. Pokémon captured and bound by a Pokeball have been known to break free and attack their owners. This has been traced to faulty microchip installation or, otherwise, hacking. _

_As many people know, Pokémon are stored in Pokeballs by use of E-MC2, or the Energy-Matter Converter Version 2. Experts speculate that Pokémon are susceptible to** heavy mental deterioration **while in this "energized" state. _

_Citizens are advised by the United Pokémon Nations to make their way to the nearest dock and board a UPN vessel. Any Pokémon brought with you, violent or otherwise, will be **shot on sight**. _

_PokeStyle Magazine: Bringing the hottest new looks to your Pokémon! _

Pokémon trampled over the trash like yesterday's newspaper. Only, it's almost like it _was_ yesterday's newspaper – the day before they stopped printing newspapers in Japan. The quality of the Pallet Press was beginning to drip anyway.

No harm done.

Pikachu sat in the corner of the room, just inside the doorway. He raised his head to the approaching figure, but relaxed when he saw that it was Spike. Her hair, as always, drifted into her eyes constantly, and she now appeared to be walking without support. Sans the limp, it was very natural.

"Should you be walking? I thought your foot was broken."

"No, Charmander did that to me awhile ago so I wouldn't run away. It was going to heal soon, so I didn't want to waste the energy. Focusing Aura is harder than it looks."

"Heheh, yeah. I know."

She sat down beside him, almost propping her body against his.

"Did you want to _say_ something to me?" he asked.

"Servine was talking to the otter earlier. I don't think she meant to hurt Emolga like that, but I heard Scrafty really giving her hell. Dewott and him were going at it before we got here, then Servine caught me and told me to tell you that Emolga would recover," she answered.

"You're really good with people's names, Spiky."

"You aren't gonna start calling me that too, are you?"

Pikachu nudged her playfully. Spike was amazed at his composure – he'd kept his head and gotten them through a lot that day, and he still had his personality intact at the end of it all. She could see why Buneary admired him. Was _every _day like this for them? she wondered.

One thing was clear, though. None of them were really happy.

_But maybe, if they find this place they're looking for, _she thought, _they can forget about everything that's happened to them. I can tell that a few of them like each other… Buneary certainly likes Pikachu, at least. And a place to settle down would be perfect. It would be just like old times, when we didn't have to worry about crazy Pokémon killing us in our sleep._

"The Tree of Beginning."

Spike squinted.

"What?" she asked.

Pikachu inhaled.

"A long time ago, my trainer and his friends were traveling. We'd been through a few adventures, fought a hundred different people, but we always came out on the lighter side. Once, we met a Pokémon named Mew."

Spike listened.

"Mew was a little flying cat. He was also immature, nonchalant, nothing like I'd expected the original creator of Pokémon to be like. I didn't want to believe that he could actually possess all of that power.

"Then, he led me to the Tree. It was a huge, enormous, and I am **not **exaggerating, tree made of stone and crystal. Right here in Kanto. He told me about the Regis, who protected the place, and that humans weren't allowed inside.

"He also told me about a war. I don't remember _why _or _who _was fighting, but he told me it happened a long, long time ago and that a great man, an Aura Guardian –"

"Guardian Aaron," Spike said. "I know this story."

"So you know what happened. He gave his life to save the Tree and stop the war."

"To save his people," she said.

"Yes."

_Drip, drip, drip_. Pikachu turned his head. Raindrops were falling, a rare sight since the drought.

"Looks like we aren't going anywhere else tonight. I hope the others come inside soon," said Spike.

…

Servine checked the blankets. Servine checked the temperature in the room. Servine checked the table that the patient lay on. Servine checked everything that she could see, smell, touch, and hear that had something to do with Emolga and her concussion.

The squirrel was smiling. Unconscious, injured, and with a nosebleed, but for some reason, still smiling.

"Dewott?"

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Can you wet this rag?" Servine held the dirty white cloth out toward him.

He took the rag from her, but he held her hand during the transition. She pulled away in response. After he wet it (quite messily; Soak was a difficult move to master), he handed her the rag.

…

"And you want me to come with you?"

Pikachu fiddled with a piece of jagged glass. He said, "I think there might be a connection. Aura Guardians and magic stones and the fate of the world aren't flaunted in front of me… *Yawn*…" his eyelids drooped, "by coincidence, but I don't _want _another adventure. I just want everything back to normal. I want to see my trainer again.

"But I saved you, so that makes you _my _responsibility, along with my friends. Those Charmanders… I didn't kill them all. They'll be back for you and me unless we get out of Pallet Town fast."

"Pikachu," she jested, "I understand. But I'm staying here to look for Eli."

Spike started to stand, but Pikachu stopped her.

"How do you know he's even _alive_? You said the Pikachus were all gone."

Thunder boomed. A storm would keep them inside all night, and hopefully would keep predators out.

"First off," she began, "he isn't a Pikachu. Remember what I said? Mates don't have to be from the same subgroup. That's how I know. Charmander still assumed that my boyfriend was a Pikachu, whom he had thought was dead by his hand. But, if they don't know who Eli _is, _then –"

"Then they still could have found him. Surely they didn't just ignore every other Pokémon they came across?"

Thunder boomed, louder than before. Spike was giving Pikachu a concerned look.

"We can save this conversation for tomorrow, okay? Let's go outside and tell the others it's safe before it starts pouring out there."

Spike took his hand in hers.

"Deal."

…

"**Dewott**, would you _focus_?"

She ripped her hand away from his grasp, slinging water into the air.

"What did _I _do?" he asked. "I just handed you the towel."

"You're such an _asshole_! Why can't you understand what I've been through?"

This again. She was always overreacting about it, and Dewott was sick and fucking tired of the drama queen act. He couldn't even get close to her without her hitting him or yelling at him, but he didn't want to abandon hope.

"I know what Emolga said, Servine, and she shouldn't have said it. But that was a year ago! Spike says she went through it a dozen times!... Servine!...

… Servine?" She was crying. "Don't cry, Servine. I'm sorry."

Servine held in her sobs.

"I'm not crying! I… " her breathing became gaspy and heavy.

"… you don't know what it's like, Dewott. It's _horrible_, and I never want to do it again. Not with anyone."

_Not with anyone?_

"I was there, Snivy, remember? Remember _me_? How do you think _I _felt when I saw that sick bastard -"

Servine wiped the last of the blood from Emolga's nose. "Hand me the acetaminophen," she said. "I want it to be here when Emolga wakes up."

But Dewott didn't move. She waited and waited and waited, but Dewott stood completely still in the middle of the science lab, his arms crossed over his chest.

"I want you to promise yourself, Servine."

She spun around, but Dewott was already in front of her. Her escape was blocked, and this other Pokémon's reflexes were much to sharp for her handle. "_Promise_, Servine!"

Servine used Vine Whip, but he caught the attack with one outstretched and calloused palm. He pulled her in and grabbed her collar with a free hand.

"_What_?! What do you want me to say?!" she shouted.

"I want you to promise yourself…"

His hand let go of her vine. Their eyes locked. The hand drifted down, down, until he felt it brush against her side.

"… that you won't give up. That because you were robbed of something you wanted to save for the right Pokémon, you think you're somehow worse than everyone else."

She fought no longer, and let Dewott grip the hand that held the dripping and bloody washcloth lightly on the leafy membrane. His body was warm, his words were warmer, and his cool, brown eyes were even hotter than the rest.

"_You_ aren't worse. _You _didn't do anything wrong."

The first crack of thunder echoed. Servine flinched, but was unable to move. Her eyes moved to the table where Emolga slept, but Dewott said, "Hey. She'll be okay. None of us blame either of you for what happened. She had a head injury and couldn't think right, you know she didn't mean anything."

Servine didn't respond. She was too afraid to try.

"Tomorrow, we'll go down to Pallet Town, you'll say sorry to Emolga when she wakes up –"

Servine opened her mouth to interrupt, but no words came. Dewott continued, "We'll find Eli…"

"How do you know about Eli?" she asked.

"Just because you can't see me, it doesn't mean I'm not always listening."

Thunder shook the walls. Everything in the room bounced violently. Servine gasped, stepping away from Dewott and taking the rag from his hand. He chuckled.

"We need to get some sleep… it's been _days _since I got some rest." He rubbed the back of his head with his hands and yawned. "You wanna stay up and watch for Emolga? Cuz' if you are…"

"No," she said, almost too quietly. "I'll sleep."

Her eyes were still red-rimmed, but she stubbornly held onto her crumbling self-esteem, nature-bound to do so. She wanted to quit it all, but she knew that her friends needed her, that Emolga needed her, even Dewott needed her.

Dewott _did _need her, she realized.

As soon as he held his hand out, Servine leapt at it with her vine.

"Servine?" he asked, nervous. Her vine tightened around his water-covered palm, still wet.

Servine reached into her pack, sitting next to Emolga on the table, and she pulled out the dead leaf she'd written on.

Dewott caught her eye, a wink, and she released her breath, _slow__ly_, _deeply_, and recited her practiced phrase.

"If only Emolga hadn't been there, right?"

Still wet.

* * *

_Chapter Three uploaded on November 11th, 2012, 8:05 PM Central Standard Time. Visit my profile for more information. Remember to review, fave and follow. It would really help me out. Words this chapter: 6,548_


	4. 4

**An Origin Story**

…

_**Michina Town outskirts, under my tree. Era Two, 4509**_

_It wasn't raining. It wasn't thundering or flooding and nothing tragic was happening, not like in the stories that she would tell me. Somehow, without all that, it made the goodbye even worse. There was nothing to distract me. I hated her for it._

"_Gary."_

_I couldn't listen to her._

"_Shut up, Mimi."_

_Don't cry, I told myself. Mimi would do enough for us both. I couldn't even look her in the eyes, nearly impossible. She was less than a foot away, but I was sure she had started crying before she even began talking. My sister cried a lot when we were young._

"_Please, Gary, don't make this so hard," she said._

"_I don't want to hear it!" I didn't know how long I had before my voice started to crack. "Who do you think you are? Leaving for months at a time and coming back to tell me 'Hey, Gary, I'm leaving forever'."_

"_You know I had to leave eventually. They need me to…"_

_I was tempted to look at her for a moment. "'They need me to'," I mocked. "'They need someone who can use Aura. They need a strong fighter. They need YOU'. They never needed ME. Now, they're taking you away."_

_She stepped closer. I backed up._

"_I love you, Gary –"_

"_Why can't I come, Mimi?" I asked, but I knew she wouldn't have an answer. "Is it because of your ear? B-Because I look too much like a Pikachu?"_

_She sobbed._

"_Because we have different moms?" I asked. She stepped closer again._

"_I don't know, but if this is the last time –" the Pichu cut herself off. "I want you to… I want our last time together…"_

"_I don't want there to be a last time, Mimi!" I screeched. "I need you here -"_

"_- you're being selfish!"_

"_YOU'RE being selfish!" I retorted. "I don't have anyone now! I don't have Mom OR Daddy! I don't have Big Bro! I don't have any friends or anything! I hate you!"_

"_Don't say that!" she pleaded. "I came here because I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, not so you could make me feel guilty!"_

"_Maybe you should have just left, then, if you were just going to leave anyway! What are you even still doing here?"_

"_I don't want to leave, but I have to. You don't understand what's at stake."_

"_They don't love you, Mimi."_

_I got the courage to look at her. It was a big mistake. She'd never taken her eyes off of mine, but she had never been the neglectful type._

"_Do you think I want to leave, Gary? You're my… my best friend…"_

_She was weeping again. Mimi opened her arms wide for an embrace, but all she received from me was a shove. I placed my palms flat and pushed as hard as I ever had before; she toppled over like a crying, sniveling child, which is all she really was, and she supposed to 'save the world'. Her mouth hung open with repressed wails as she looked at me, her attacker, but all I did was speak back._

"_They're just using you. That's all anyone does anymore. That's what the bad man did to Damos, and that's what you did to me, ever since you hatched. You're the reason Mom left Daddy. There was always the legend of 'a small electric mouse that would save the world', and they assumed it was you. No one gave me a second look, but you're the bastard of the family. At least I was legitimate, and not a deformed freak. But I loved you anyway. I let you win our eating contests to make you feel better. And after I put all of my love into you and everyone else is gone or dead, you're going to leave me alone?"_

_My sister was wordless. Those feelings I expressed were biased, but…_

_I kept my eyes searching for something to focus on while my sister sat there and thought. I could smell the rain on the wind and wished it would just come already so, maybe, Mimi would stay for a little longer. I understood how she felt; humiliated, rejected, but there was still one word, one I had yet to discover._

"_Gary… after all you just said, and even if I had a choice… why would I want to stay?"_

_I crossed my arms and leered._

"_That's the point. Go eat a Grepa berry and leave me alone."_

_Mimi left me alone. _

_I climbed into my tree, my now empty tree, and cried. I cried for two days. It was the last time I would cry for months, and when I finally got the confidence to leave my tree again, it started raining. _

_It's amazing how the feeling of sadness can completely overlap hunger. It was the exact same thing that happened when Daddy died and Mom left me. There was still Mimi's mom, but I stayed away from her._

_I slept in my tree, loathing my Pikachu-colored fur. I felt Mimi's presence, still in the tree, like a damned stink that will never go away, but I wasn't able to leave it behind either. I held my own hand, hoping it would bring back memories of her, and just sat with my face against the wall. My fears were childish and dumb, but telling myself that she was truly, forever gone… let's say, for the sake of irony, time was not on my side. _

_I never did find anyone to hold my hand in place of hers, and I never found anyone to wipe the tears from my eyes, so they stayed there. Two months, I discovered, was how long I'd been in that tree. The gods above must really have wanted me to survive, but they also wanted me to be alone, the pain of which I felt was incomprehensible to anyone who still had their family. _

_I was never able to look at, let alone eat, Grepa berries. They were her favorites._

_After seven months passed, I would be greeted by random spasms in my fingers and ears, brought on by the psychological damage of being as depressed as I was for so long, and for being as young as I was. My feet often fell out from under me, so I spent most of my time on the ground. I would walk out to the forest, lie in a clearing, and wait for a kind Pokémon to ask what was wrong so I could snap my teeth at it. It would have been funny if I weren't actually trying to bite his or her foot off._

_Before I knew it, eighteen months passed since Mimi left. A year and a half. I wandered into the town regularly to harass the humans, who were sure I was rabid. I snuck into barrels of grain and did the same thing I would do with the wild Pokémon, but, unfortunately, the humans would recognize me and become sympathetic of my problems. That's when I was told the humans were in on it. I left Michina Town forever and went to live in the mountains with the mice-eating hawks, some of the stupidest animals in existence._

_Nineteen months passed. I ate several small rocks, hoping they would kill me. Or were they hawk eggs?_

_Twenty months. I jumped off of a cliff and survived._

_Every day, my mind was raging a battle between depression and survival, and this was one the examples of times when depression won over. I started drawing paintings, in bits of blood from my fingers, on the white mountain peaks where the hawks would see them. Most were of Mimi, and the hawks would fly down and try to eat her. I fought them off. Then I would hug Mimi and tell her not to cry._

_Twenty one months. I inflicted self-cannibalism after slipping into a crevice. I escaped after one week. Luckily, I had only eaten bits of my own hair and claws._

_Twenty two months. I suffered from hysteria and declared myself Master of Hawks, proceeding to hunt down and kill every hawk populating the mountain. I wouldn't eat them, of course, being a herbivore, but the hawk-like vultures became my greatest allies. I was legendary. If only Mimi could have seen me then._

_Twenty three months. The humans from Michina Town sent a search party into the mountains to kill whatever was exterminating all of the hawks which they relied on for food. As it turns out, they were looking for me. I commanded my vulture brethren to attack the humans. Our fight was victorious. I celebrated by creating a mural from human blood on the peaks. It took ten weeks to make. It was enormous. _

_And it was of Mimi._

_**Two years. **_

_I was awoken by the caw! caw! of a passing vulture, whose head was poking itself in my direction. I saw the sky, or what I thought was the sky, shining through the crevice. For the second time since Mimi left me to fend for myself, I had risen from a two month slumber. For the first time since Mimi left me to fend for myself, my eyes were open wide._

_The thoughts that once birthed themselves in my head now horrified me. I was lucky the past two months were a dream._

"_Caw! Caw!" the vulture said, departing after seeing that I was malnourished but still very much alive. I remarked to myself that I had inherited the trait of disappointing others from my sister. _

_I touched my arms. They were wiry, thin. My breaths were shuddered. If I could see my own eyes, they most likely would have appeared dilated. What made me the most ashamed, out of everything that had happened since the one I relied on abandoned me, was the fact that I still missed her. The hope that she would come back for me, one day, still clung to me._

_It was the only thing ever wanted. My chin quivered uncontrollably, as if the action would bring her back. She had no idea how much I needed her. It occurred to me, finally, that she might have needed me too._

_The revelation gave me the strength to sit up._

_What had been haunting me? Mimi's departure, or the words she had departed on? The words I spoke to her. It was the last thing I said to the last thing I loved, and I f… f… fucked it up. Fuck. Fuckity fuck-fuck. The new word brought me an inner peace. It was like unleashing my emotions with a lone syllable._

"_Hey!"_

_I looked up. A Combusken looked back down at me. I could only see its head and neck._

"_Are you Gary?" he asked._

"_Fuck off!" I said, clearly out of my mind, but for all I knew, I was still dreaming._

"_Nice to meet you, too. I'm here to get you out of there. Turns out, there was a mix-up."_

_The air pressure in my esophagus clamped slightly and the blood flowed out of my face. My nostrils pinched closed, my eyes grew white and my feet came quickly off of the ground, a result of this Pokémon's ability to use the Aura._

_I drifted so closely to the edges of the crevice that the snow brushed over my fur and fell into the hole that I had just been in – a larger Pokémon would only have stepped over it. Ignoring the magical Pokémon in front of me, I looked around at the familiar sights, like the hidden tree root that led to me tripping and falling into the crevice in the first place. _

_Mix-up? I wondered._

"_Good news, Gary. You're going to Kanto."_

_I stared at him. The first words spoken to me in a year happened to be the most out of place and disheartening words I had ever heard in my life. Michina Town was in Sinnoh. How would I get to Kanto?_

"_Please elaborate," I requested._

"_Ooh, a gentleman. You're going to make some eccentric female's dream come true. So, anyway, we had to pull Nomad out of commission and you appeared to fit the bill. Congratulations. I heard you were a little jealous of Spiky-ear getting the spot instead of you!"_

"…"

_You would think that something different would be on my mind, having just escaped from a certain death (almost escaped – I was still hovering by my throat over the crevice), but it was the only thing I had thought about for two years._

"_Can I see Mimi again?" My voice was less deserving than that of a whimper. It was pathetic._

_And the Combusken answered my question with another question._

"_Do you remember the Pikachu that came here oh so many years ago, the one who brought his friends with him?"_

_My throat was closing from lack of air, but I knew immediately who Combusken referred to._

"_Big Bro," I answered._

"_For now, I'm only going to say this…"_

_I listened even more closely than I had listened to the vultures in my coma-induced illusion, one that still lived in my mind as vividly as an actuality. And Combusken said, _

"… _let's just say, you're going to get real acquainted with him, real soon."_

_He released his Aura. I fell back into the crevice. The bottom approached, and it became clear to me that I had been betrayed and thrown facefirst back down to my death._

_A portal opened at the bottom. It was a long green tunnel, then a grassy field on the other side. The wind threatened to tear my ears off, but the sight on the other side took away what little breath I had._

_It seemed that what I was jealous of most was Mimi going off to adventure without me, but if this really was my chance to reunite with her, I'd better embrace it and give it all I have. The Combusken's statement brought more questions forward than it answered, so I had to hope that Big Bro, if I could find him, whenever he was, could lead me to Mimi. This was my shot to redeem myself for wasting all that time, making myself miserable. I had found my purpose again. My castle stood proud and tall. There was never a more hopeful moment in my life than when I entered that Aura portal, because I knew that I would find my Big Bro, maybe even the penguin and the rabbit and the monkey, on the other side. The only undeniable truth was that I would be flying blind when I got to where I was going. At least I would finally be doing something besides merely existing._

_I stuck my hand out and reached for something that I couldn't even see, and there was only one word I could think of to describe it._

_Fuck._

…

**Episode1: A Fresh Perspective**

_**Chapter Four: **_The Age of Pokémon

…

_**Pallet Town outskirts, in the lab. Era Three, 0067**_

_E-moooooooolga._

She shook her head.

_E-moooo – ooh, are you waking up?_

"Whuh?" she asked.

"WAKE UUUUUUUUUUUP."

As her eyes opened, she saw nothing but darkness. The first sight visible to her was what was closest to her head – Axew, and his now scarred eye. A jolt of energy surged through her spine and snapped her back forward like a whip, almost headbutting Axew as a result, but she stopped her forehead inches short of his.

Seeing his large eyes up so close embarrassed her, but her arms shot out in protest of her emotions and seized him by his collar. Emolga would have fallen back down in exhaustion, but Axew gripped her hands as well.

"Wait," he said.

Emolga shakily exhaled, his cold hands chilling her. "Yeah?" she asked.

"We're still friends, right?"

"Why not?" she asked.

Axew hesitated. "Because, you… you don't remember? Oh," he said, pushing her away. "Nevermind then."

"What happened?" Axew had hoped Emolga wouldn't probe for information. He didn't think she wouldn't, he had just hoped. He knew enough to know not to lie to her, and to be grateful that she had even gotten amnesia at all. Axew let go of Emolga's hands.

"You and Servine got in a fight and she bonked you on the head – by accident!" Axew had no wish to implicate Servine. "She said something and you said something back and I didn't even hear the conversation and I was just going to ask you something and you said something that I didn't hear and Servine screamed and Buneary was crying again and Pikachu shouted at Servine and Scrafty did too and Dewott came out of nowhere and Servine was crying too and she's really sorry about what happened and… and…"

Axew pointed to his chest. "… this."

Emolga was wooed by the romantic gesture, until she realized what his chest represented was literal, not metaphorical. It was a large bruise, blood-filled and wide across his chest, almost as wide as his mouth. His very own Purple Heart. Emolga wanted to touch it, but she was too afraid of hurting him and too afraid to ask how he got it.

"It was a little bit of my fault. Servine didn't know I was there and you would have hit the ground instead of me. Now, I got a bruise," he joked. The explanation was good enough for Emolga, despite not quite knowing the entire truth.

Axew would keep the kiss to himself.

"Do you wanna touch it?" he asked.

She nodded and smiled.

"Don't press down too hard. It still hurts since you hit it."

...

Pikachu had made the executive decision to take Axew out of any and all combat. This would be a problem – the only eligible fighters left were himself, Dewott, Buneary, Scrafty, and Piplup. He had injureds: Pansage, Emolga, and he didn't feel right about putting Spike to the fight yet. If she volunteered, that was great. The extensions of Aura in fighting were not known to anyone else.

Servine was too valuable to risk. She's the only one of them who could work human technology and sew up a gash, and she would be useless in a fight against any male that was even slightly larger than her.

Pachirisu was quite possibly one of the weakest Pokémon that Pikachu had ever been on a team with, but he knew how to make a meal more tolerable and lighten the mood once in a while.

It still bothered him, having only half of his available Pokémon combat-ready. It also bothered him that he and Dewott were the only ones who had gone as far as to kill another Pokémon, not that anyone but he and Servine knew what Dewott had done.

The last thing he wanted was an interruption, but that's exactly what he needed. Spike knew it, and she provided it. She knew she also needed the distraction, so she might as well sink two ships with one cannon.

Pikachu stood on the far side of the hill where Professor Oak's home couldn't spy on him while he thought. Some people might call him 'disturbed'. Truthfully, he was simply dishonest, but so was Spike, and dishonest people need each other to vent with – she knew from experience, and she wanted to get it over with before daybreak. Spike had an entire day in front of her to look for Eli.

"What are you doing out here?"

Pikachu's sad expression as he turned to face her was the most heartbreaking thing she felt in thousands of years. Even more heartbreaking was how quickly he'd managed to hide it and put on a less morbid attitude. Feelings were not meant to be repressed. She hated him for it.

His ears were hung off of his head like careless holiday decorations, a tactic he'd learned from Spike. It made him appear harmless and haphazard. "Just watching out for predators while everyone sleeps. Why are you up so early? Is Buneary still asleep?"

Spike got as close as she dared, but she wanted to see more of his face. The lighting outside was dim, as the sun had not even begun rising over the hills. "Buneary is inside with Piplup. She said she couldn't sleep."

Pikachu huffed. "Of course she is," sounding very annoyed.

Spike took a breath and walked, on two legs, to Pikachu's side. He stood a head higher, but she was used to Pokémon taller than her. He smelled like dirt and, she didn't want to admit, blood, dirt being perfectly natural, of course.

"I know that's not why you're out here," Spike said.

"You calling me a liar?"

"I'm calling you lonely, and I've been called 'good company'. I was wondering what was on your mind, but if you don't want to talk…"

Pikachu became intrigued. "Good company? I guess I don't have a choice, then."

Spike giggled, coughed, and corrected herself.

"You don't need to be so insecure," Pikachu said. "I thought we already talked about this. You're one of us now." He clenched a fist and held it up to his chest. It was another clear example of how he came to lead this little group, but Spike couldn't let herself become distracted.

"Let's sit down," he suggested.

"Okay."

He reminded her of Eli. He reminded her of someone else as well, but she'd stopped thinking about him long ago, and like her mind was a rubberband that had been stretched out and suddenly released, she remembered how sad Pikachu had looked when she'd first arrived at his side. It was too late to turn back now. Spike had no regrets. She sat with him.

As Pikachu's bottom touched the ground, he reached into the air and fell backwards, letting his arms lead the rest of his upper body to the ground and thumping into the grass. He dug his hands into the storm-fresh dew and rubbed his face with wet palms, staining his cheeks green with plant blood. He was, indeed, a happy mouse.

_Oh God_, Spike thought. _Does he want me to do that? _

Spike was sitting, but she twisted her head around to see if anyone was watching them. The only things she saw were the forest, an empty gated-off area, a crumbling building, a town in the valley, and Pikachu making a fool of himself in the grass. In a way, Spike was flattered that he was as comfortable around her as he seemed to be.

_This Pikachu's a heartbreaker, no doubt. It must be why Buneary is so afraid of him._

Spike scratched her ear whilst Pikachu rolled around.

_That, and the death._

"Pikachu?"

"What?" he asked, refusing to open his eyes. He was now scratching his back on the ground, flexing in a way that made him look like a housecat with his wrists to his shoulders and his legs wide apart.

"What did they do to you?"

"What did… who?"

"The others. Your friends."

"They forgave me, encouraged me, and rescued me from myself. Does that answer your question?"

"No," Spike said. The topic had brought out Pikachu's stubborn side, and two could play at that game. She didn't intend to lose. "I'm talking about the drugs."

He stopped flexing. Spike heard a growl…

"That was a long time ago."

… but it looked like he was willing to talk about it. Pikachu opened his eyes and sat upright.

"The Psychotics where we come from, in Unova and Sinnoh, they aren't like the Psychotics here. I noticed it when we fought back at the clearing. They had horrible strategy, but that was it. They actually had a strategy. They were organized. Our Psychotics were wilder and primal, like a… well, you know. But these guys, oh Mew… how many of them do you think there are?"

Spike said, "I've never seen more than I saw at that clearing. It was my ceremony. I wasn't useful anymore, so they were gonna 'off' me. They would have already killed me before you guys even got there."

"How is that?" Pikachu asked.

"They use other Pokémons' Aura to refill their Catalysts, but it kills the Pokémon being drawn from in the process, so I had to figure out how to hide my Aura or I was a goner.

"I'd been around Catalysts long enough to know how they work. During our last… our-our last… 'session' –"

"I understand, Spike, and I'm sorry," Pikachu interrupted.

"Sorry. So, during 'that', I got my hand on his snout, the Charmander, and I transferred my Aura into his stone. I figured I would die anyway, and Charmer would've found out where I hid my Aura eventually, but he wouldn't be able to draw it out without killing himself.

"A Catalyst is bound by blood – that's why they have to stick them into themselves rather than carrying them in a pouch or on a necklace."

"But I saw you yesterday. You used it just fine."

"I wasn't using the Aura inside of _me_," she corrected, "I was using the Aura already inside of the stone. That's why it's called a Catalyst. It's a method of indirectly transferring Aura from one living thing to another, because once a creature begins to receive Aura, it continues to draw until the donor is dead, even if the donor becomes unwilling and attempts to sever the connection."

"In order for you to continue filling this Catalyst with your Aura, then… you, uh…"

Spike held her hand up, "Already taken care of – see?" and lifted her upper left lip. He wasn't sure how it was possible, but Spike had somehow buried the entire Catalyst inside of her gumline. Pikachu looked away in disgust. "What's wrong?" asked Spike.

"It's weird that the thing that was in Charmer's mouth is now inside –"

"Shit. I didn't think of that."

Pikachu and Spike were awkwardly silent. Spike poked at her tooth. Pikachu propped his arms in the ground and let his eyes wander at the sky. Eventually, they looked back to the other, and they laughed. Not because anything was funny, and neither were nervous at all, it just felt right to laugh at that moment.

_I guess now is as good a time as any to ask him_, thought Spike.

"Pikachu."

"Yuh-huh," he acknowledged.

Spike knew there was no easy way to ask this, but she wanted to be careful. "I need to ask you something personal."

Spike waited for him to say something, which she decided was a stupid thing to do after he said nothing.

She went for it, and asked him.

"Have you ever had sex with anyone?"

"Whu?... No! What the hell?!"

Spike jumped on the defensive.

"Don't get pissy with me!"

Pikachu stood up.

"It's just a weird question to ask," he said.

Spike stood up also, once more dwarfed in size by comparison. "You're telling me that no one has ever asked you if you were a virgin."

"Yeah! Yes, I, well, yeah. Servine did. She said it was for medical reasons, though. Something about a 'sexual active lifestyle'. I can't say anything about to _her _about asking me stuff like that, not after what happened in Unova."

"Pfft, please. I went through what she did a million times, and she's a diva about it happening _once_."

Pikachu clamped his hand over her Spike. He held onto her head and scanned the treeline like an obsessive-compulsive soldier of paranoia. She struggled. Pikachu let her go when he knew the coast was clear. "What was that for?" Spike asked.

"The last person who said something like that about Servine," Pikachu explained, tapping his noggin, "got a scalchop to the brain from Dewott. I'm serious. You need to be really careful about what you say around us."

Spike rubbed her chin. "Are you for real?"

"You weren't there, Spike. I was."

Pikachu inhaled.

"All you need to know, is… I don't want to talk about it. I damn near went insane seeing it in person." He pinched the bridge of his nose and crossed the other arm over his chest. "There was a lot of blood, Spike. There was so much blood, I saw shades of red in the corners of my eyes for the next few hours. _That's _why you don't make fun of her."

"I didn't know," she said.

"Yeah," said Pikachu. "You should be inside, sleeping. I can go another few hours out here by myself."

"You can come inside. I don't think the predators are coming out tonight, and from I've heard, you have a habit a falling to sleep on long walks."

"Yeaaaaaaah," he replied. "I could go for some sleep. Wait… you heard from _who_?"

"Come on!" shouted Spike, grabbing his paw and jerking him out of his trance. He took the lead, laughing, and Spike scanned the trees to be safe. As tired as she was, she was excited to tell Buneary what she learned.

Pikachu came upon the threshold, with a now fully-opened door, as an ecstatic Piplup was making his exit. Spike turned back to face them just in time to see Pikachu, not stopping to ask where he was going, not stepping aside to let Piplup pass, but slamming into Piplup's side.

Piplup's head clonked against the doorframe and Pikachu continued past. A satchel that had been hanging from his shoulder slipped off from the force of the impact and landed onto the concrete step. Seeing this was the equivalent, to Spike, of witnessing a grisly murder.

She waited for Piplup to say something to Pikachu, but he just shrugged and picked up his satchel, looked at Spike, and smiled the same way Pikachu had when Spike greeted him.

"Hi there," he began. "Buneary was wondering where you were, but I can see that you're right here. See, sis?"

Buneary peeked around Piplup and grinned at Spike. Her scarf was still on and her ear was still hidden.

Spike wanted to say something to Piplup, like, 'Why did Pikachu push you?', 'Why didn't you say anything?', and 'Does that happen often, and why is no one saying anything?'. She wanted to find Pikachu again and confront him herself.

Then…

"_You need to be really careful about what you say around us."_

Piplup's eyes proved it. They were sad again.

Piplup had little control of what happened next. Spike touched his head, stood on her toes, and put her lips to where the doorframe struck him. She backed down, jumped forward, and gave him a big hug like she'd practiced.

"Buneary says I should do that more," Spike explained, and let go. She finished the embrace by trailing her fingers down his arms and pulling out the tips of his flippers, then letting go.

Piplup seemed confused, but imagine being in his position: pushed by a Pikachu one second and getting a kiss from one the next. He thought of nothing to say, so he retreated to his nook in the corner of the hut, now populated by him and him alone. Buneary remained by Spike.

Buneary waited for her answer.

"He said he was," Spike answered.

"Thank you, Spike. I'm so so so sorry for making you ask him that."

"It's okay, girlfriend! If I loved him, I wouldn't be able to ask him to his face either."

Buneary squealed with a smile brighter than the moon, "Yay!" She hugged Spike, expressing her joy in Pikachu's answer.

Piplup watched them hug from across the room. He was glad that Buneary had someone she could rely on now, and not making futile attempts to talk to him.

Piplup looked at Pikachu and instantly looked away – Pikachu had been looking at _him_.

Finally, Piplup looked at his satchel. As long as he had what was inside with him, he would always be safe. And if he ever lost it, then it was game over for him.

He tapped it with his flipper, dreadful of the time that he was sure would come when he had to look up again. He stared at his buttons. He made a song in his head to distract himself of the one that was stuck in his head from the other night.

Piplup got the courage, and looked up. The moment for the sun to rise came.

Piplup and his friends looked through the hazy window with hope, hearing an exasperated "Goddamnit" from Pikachu in his part-drunken sleep deprivation. The raspy grumbles of sleepy Pokémon crept into the room. Axew and Emolga and Dewott and Servine yawned their way out of the kitchen, Scrafty coughed up more soot before waking completely, Pansage pleaded with Pachirisu to stop using his head as a pillow, and Spike and Buneary held each other's hands (and paws) and talked.

But they all looked through the same window.

…

_**The Plan.**_

Oak's Lab would act as their base for the day, but it wouldn't last as a permanent home. Pikachu had Dewott, Spike, Axew, Servine, and Scrafty at attention while the others gathered around their table.

Between them, Pikachu pointed out the Goals.

Finding Eli, hopefully not dead or worse, was at the top of the list. If he had become a Psychotic, there was a small chance that he hadn't be able to find his Pokeball and destroy it, and if it was still intact, they could use it to release him and return him to normal. If they were lucky, Professor Oak had released all of Ash's Pokémon beforehand and they had holed up somewhere inside of the town for protection. If they weren't lucky, Eli was already dead.

Spike sat and listened, for these trainer's pets obviously knew a hell of a lot more than she did about the Psychotics, or Pokeballs in general.

"There might be more of our friends in the town?" asked Pachirisu.

"I think we all know what that means," said Servine. "We need more medical supplies."

"Is there a Pokemon Center in Pallet Town, Pikachu?" asked Dewott.

Pikachu waved his hands in the air. "You guys are standing in it! The Lair of the Creator of Pokeballs!"

"Why didn't you say so?" said Servine. "I could've been up last night scrounging instead of –"

A glare from Dewott, on her right.

"- instead of sleeping. Yeah, sleeping."

She blushed, seeing Axew gleam at her, knowing she'd been up all night with Dewott. He didn't know if they'd kissed or anything, or why she was so shy about it. Thinking about it made his chest hurt. And his eye. And his stub of a tusk. He touched it, rubbing the center until Pikachu directed his attention to him.

"Axew?"

"Right here," he said.

"No fighting until your eye heals, okay?"

Servine and Spike caught each other looking at Axew, seeing the look on his face, saying nothing to reply to Pikachu. He broke away and walked over to Emolga and Pansage, both knowing his fate was sealed. Not only would he never be able to fight, his eye would make it difficult for him to even walk correctly, unless someone was willing to hold his hand, but Pikachu knew of no one who would agree to do that for him.

A tear broke out, but Pikachu wiped it away.

"I've figured out who goes where and does what today. I have Servine, Dewott, Axew, Emolga, Pansage, and myself staying here to look around and see if we can find out exactly where those Charmanders came from.

"And Spike, you'll take Buneary, Scrafty, and Pachirisu into the town to see what you can do about finding any Pokémon. Maybe they've seen Eli. And don't be afraid to look around in the stores for anything we can use – yes, Scrafty, I'm giving you permission to loot."

"Score!" Scrafty thrust his mighty fist into the air with great enthusiasm while Spike could only admire Pikachu's negligence for leaving Piplup out. It made her wonder what had occurred with them both. From what Buneary had told her already, Pikachu and Piplup were best friends at one point.

All she knew about the two was that they were together with Buneary in Urteil. Spike resolved to bring Piplup with them into Pallet Town, but she didn't see him anywhere. He was probably behind her.

"Is everyone okay with the plan?" asked Pikachu.

No one said anything. Buneary nodded her head, sad that Pikachu had chosen to separate himself from her. She held her paw out to Spike, who took it with her own, as Pachirisu climbed into a comfortable spot on the side of Scrafty's crest atop his head.

"Bye, Pikachu," said Buneary. Spike waved for her.

"I'll see you later, okay? Be careful."

"Bye."

Group Two passed over the threshold of the lab, leaving Pikachu alone with his injureds and medics.

…

_**Investigate.**_

A wish, no more than a dumb dream, was Pikachu's, hoping he would cease to see those words in his head someday. Dewott tapped on his head, cocked a hip, and waited for Pikachu to notice him.

"What, Joshua?" he asked.

"I guess it's time to look around now, isn't it?" Dewott said, upset that Pikachu had used Servine's – or Snivy's, rather – special name for him.

Servine asked, "Do you know if the professor had an interface around here? I may be able to access his shipping manifests or find some of his old research notes and get them onto a hard drive."

"Or you could _print_ them," Dewott added. When Servine's face became flushed, he said, "Or a hard drive would be good to have as a backup, if we ever needed to use another interface."

Servine looked away from him. _Why did I mouth off to her? _he wondered, but Pikachu took hold before Dewott said anything else to hurt Servine.

"Oak used one to talk with us all the time on our tours, and I've personally seen it. Didn't you see it in his office?" Pikachu asked.

"We didn't go inside the office," she replied, "but it looks like it's back through the kitchen and on the far side of the lab."

"What are the kids going to do while we're in there?" asked Dewott.

From the door of the kitchen, the three could see Emolga playing with something in Pansage's head-foliage while Axew held the primate's broken arm out. It didn't seem to bother him, and Emolga acted less concussed and tired than expected. "I think they're safe if they stay there with Pansage. Those two need a buffer after what –"

Dewott got Servine's attention. "- what happened with Emolga in the clearing yesterday. I know he feels guilty, but Emolga will forgive him. Right, Servine?"

"I get the point, Joshua. I told her I was sorry already."

"Then let's not keep everyone waiting," said Pikachu, urging the two to hurry.

…

Cold wind blew too often through the valleys of Kanto, Group Two discovered. It bothered Buneary none, since her species was most adapted to freezing temperatures and strong winds, as was the case with Pachirisu and Piplup. Scrafty was finding difficulty in maintaining silence around the females and with Pachirisu on his head, and he suspected that Buneary and the new one wanted somewhere to have 'girl talk'.

It was made worse by the fact that he had to hold up his pants wherever he went. He had made a plan, but wasn't sure if Pikachu would let him go through with it until he'd been given permission to loot.

Buneary kept looking back the way they came, and it was starting to annoy Spike, making her anxious. "We'll get back soon, Bun," she said. "Pikachu is fine up there."

But Buneary's mind was somewhere else. "Hey," said Spike, vying for her to speak.

"I was so sure… like, I mean…" Buneary mumbled. "Females used to come on to him all the time, so, I figured he got around a lot."

Spike heard Scrafty shuffle as far away as possible from Buneary's sudden declaration.

"No way," Spike said. "He's all yours, girl, but for Mew's sake, try to ask him out soon."

"Why?" asked Buneary, nearly letting her ear slip out.

"I know he's scary, but if you got past it once –"

"But why?" asked Buneary.

Spike didn't want to say it, but she was being given no choice.

"Because we don't have a lot of time."

Buneary's eyes grew solemn.

"Pikachu's really strong, but he has too many enemies. One day, he's going to bite off more than he can chew and it's going to come back to bite _him_. Someone needs to give him a reason to stop sticking his neck out, Buneary."

"Are you saying he's going to die if he keeps trying to protect us?"

"I'm saying," Spike continued, " he's going to die if you don't do something about it."

"But, we made it this far…"

"Everyone has a limit, Bun, and it seems like Pikachu's been going full speed since he was born. A mortal Pokémon was not meant to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it seems like he's almost out of chips to cache –"

"- please stop with the metaphors," Buneary requested.

"If you say so…" Spike said.

She stuck out her arm and stopped Buneary, grabbed her, and said,

"You need to fuck Pikachu."

She stood, silent. Scrafty stopped to observe and question Pachirisu about what had been said, who was concealing his face.

Buneary's senses came back to her.

"What di- what? You want me to ask him out. That's what you said."

Spike shook her head. In as serious and deep a tone she can make, she says,

"You walk up to him and you FUCK him."

"I can't do… why would I?... that's sick, Spike!"

Buneary wrestled against her, but Spike had more control of herself at the moment. Buneary was too emotionally distressed to even think of doing anything to Pikachu.

"I know what I'm talking about, Buneary. It's life or death with him."

Buneary quit squirming.

"I think, when he got so big, it was because the supplements were reacting with a sexually immature body type."

Spike let go, but Buneary did not flee.

"The pills were meant for adults, I'm assuming, but Pikachu has to be the most sexually disinterested Pokémon I've ever met. Even the Axew, how old was he, two? _He_ seemed more in tune with his gender than Pikachu is, and Pikachu has to be at least six."

"What do you want _me_ to do about it?" asked Buneary. "I don't even know how it happens."

"Look, listen, you don't have to do anything _yet_," she explained, "but we need to find out, for his sake, if he is at all interested in mating. Not even mating, just, pardon me, 'getting a load off'."

"What?" asked Buneary, dumbly.

"We can dress you up…" Spike said.

"Oh," Buneary beamed, "I know how to do _that_, at least."

"Great! So, we get you prettied up and you can practice hitting on him like you used to."

"Yeah," Buneary blushed.

"Then again, he _was_ a little shorter back then, wasn't he?" asked Spike.

"Don't tell him I said this," Buneary whispered, "(but Pikachu used to be shorter than me. He was kind of chubby, too.)"

They laughed, leaving Scrafty and Pachirisu completely confused from their position at the rear of the four-Pokémon recon squad.

"What are they talking about, Pachirisu?" Scrafty aimed the question above his head to the squirrel's ears.

"They're trying to get Pikachu laid," said Pachirisu.

"Laid where?" he asked.

"I think we're gonna find out soon enough, Scrags."

…

Dewott opened the knife drawer. Then the refrigerator. He made his way through the kitchen opening every cupboard and storage area he came across, but not finding a key. Pikachu _thumps _on the Professor's office door could be heard the room over.

_Not in the blender, either…_

Servine was busy looking for a key in the lab area. None of them were really expecting the door to be locked, but it was, and it was locked tight.

_Not inside any of the oven mitts…_

Dewott threw items into the air, swimming inside the contents of drawers with his hands. This mystery made the search exciting. Why had the police not raided Professor Oak's office? Was there not enough time? And why had Oak locked his door? Pikachu was deadset on finding something important in there, but Dewott didn't know why he was throwing himself against the door like a ragdoll. He wasn't risking using elemental attacks to bring the door down, since it would endanger anything inside of the office.

_No elemental attacks… wait!_

"Servine! Stop looking!"

"Did you find the key?" she asked

"I have an idea!"

Servine saw Dewott there, then he wasn't, then he was there again on the other side of the room, stopping Pikachu from slamming the door again.

He unsheathed a scalchop.

"Wish I'd thought of that," whined Pikachu.

Dewott brought the sharp side across the golden deadbolt, breaking it off like it was nothing but a cheap dime-store screwhead. He twisted the doorknob – still locked, and he slammed it with his palm. It popped off with a midair twirl and tinked onto the granite floor. By then, he was only showing off in front of Servine.

Without waiting, he raised his foot and kicked the door at its center of gravity. It flew open on its hinges.

They saw a mahogany desk, a lit tablelamp, green drapes revealing an open window, and standing on the dark red rug before the door was Piplup, flippers folded.

"Finally," he said.

Dewott felt Pikachu trudge into the room, his footsteps loud and intended to intimidate, but it's what he did next that caught him off guard. Pikachu took Piplup by the flippers and pinned him to the wall, anger clearly resonating off of the penguin's face in the form of fear. Pikachu's aptitude for hitting Piplup's head on things seemed to be at its peak these last few minutes.

"How the hell did you get in here, Pipsqueak?" asked Pikachu.

"Pikachu…" Servine interjected.

"I went around back and opened the window," said Piplup.

"And _why_ did you not unlock the door for us?"

Piplup flicked his digitless flippers at Pikachu. Pikachu was still looking for an excuse to be mad, but there wasn't one to be found, so he let the satchel-bearing Piplup fall to the floor.

Servine entered the room, looking past Dewott and the two rivals and spotting what she had hoped to find. "Dewott, right there."

"Thank Arceus," he said, following her eyes, "an interface."

On the far side of the window and in the corner of the room. For a year old, it looked brand new. Red and silver, of course, displaying an entire station. The screen pointed towards the room's center, but this model was reminiscent of a semi-portable Version Six interface. The Pokeball Reintegration Device was there, the stool was a new addition, but what was missing for Servine was the keyboard.

She was going to need some time alone with this thing.

"Dewott, go look around for any files while I get this thing running."

"Rodger dodger."

Servine walked around the device, but saw no cords connecting it to an outlet. She assumed it was wired to the floor or had some sort of external generator, and if it was, it would be hopeless. The stand was not attached to the floor, she discovered after shaking it back and forth with her vines.

The stool was connected to the base of the structure, so Servine lifted herself into it for a better view. From her angle, she immediately saw how the screen worked. The fourteen-by-ten inch frame slid out of two clasps that held it in place, meaning it _was _portable. It also meant the device was a touchscreen, something she'd never used before.

Lastly, it was solar-powered, much like herself.

"Servine, can you make any sense of these?"

Her vision was invaded by whiteness and squiggly blackness. Servine swatted away the papers that Pikachu had shoved in her face. "Dewott, get these papers and read them for Pikachu. I've almost got this thing figured out."

The interface slid out of the slot like warm butter and fell gently into Servine's grasp. She ventured to the window while Dewott came to remove the papers from Pikachu's possession. Piplup, meanwhile, was screwing around with the Professor's personal items from his desk drawers.

"Show them to me," said Dewott, and Pikachu let him have them for him to read.

They read,

_OPERATION MANUAL_

_EX002 "THE AGE OF POKEMON" _

_These instructions are to be read by Professor Samuel Oak and him alone. _

"A revolution in technology necessary to the comprehension of the Pokémon hierarchy," Dewott read, " the Age of Pokémon device will accurately measure total years since hatched and maturity level."

"Holy –"

Dewott continued, "The level of maturity has been calculated by the following factors: subspecies, type, age, current level of evolution, resting heart rate, and diseases that specific Pokémon possesses. Two to five numbers may appear onscreen. The first one to three, in blue, shall represent the age of the Pokémon. The next one to two, in green, shall represent the maturity level. Professional reviewers have compared Pokémon's level of maturity to be similar to a measurement of a human-being's lifespan, meaning that the Age of Pokémon can be used to measure a Pokémon's life in 'Pokémon years'."

"Pikachu! I got the interface working!"

Dewott continued.

"Using this device is as simple as pressing the nozzle to the surface of the Pokémon's skin and pressing the button – did Professor Oak invent this?"

"I guess he did," said Pikachu. "Oak's done some pretty amazing stuff over the last few years, but –"

"Pikachu," Servine called.

"Servine," he called back.

"Do you have any idea what Oak used as a password? This thing is locked."

_WELCOME_

_PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD BELOW_

"I didn't think the old man was so stingy with his information," remarked Dewott.

"Try, 'Age of Pokémon'," Pikachu said.

_AGE OF POKEMON_

Nothing happened.

"Geez, I dunno. Try, 'Gary'."

"Who's Gary?" Servine asked.

"Oak's grandson," answered Pikachu.

_GARY_

Nothing happened.

_KETCHUM_

_POKEBALL_

_PALLET_

_PIDGEY_

None of the passwords worked. Then, Piplup found it.

"Hey, look at this! I found his picture!"

Dewott, Pikachu, and Servine turned away for a second to see the unframed photograph. Professor Samuel Oak, wearing a fishing hat and a tropical shirt, side-by-side with a beautiful red-headed woman.

"I think it's his wife or something," said Piplup.

Pikachu looked back to the screen. "I know what the password is. Try, 'Delia'."

_DELIA_

It worked.

"It worked," Servine sighed. "I didn't think we would ever get in. How did you know her name?"

"It doesn't matter," Pikachu replied. "Now what are you going to try?"

The screen had standard windows and an access bar at the bottom. With the touchscreen, it wouldn't be very hard for her to navigate. "Give me a minute and I'll find what we're looking for, if it's on here."

"Good, because Dewott and I have something else to show you."

The light from the window illuminated her search. A simple two-vined approached worked quite well for Servine, and she soon came upon the professional workings of Oak's science.

Most of it was data from failed experiments and extremely detailed formulas using the law of the conservation of energy and other things she didn't understand yet. None of it was medical, so Servine skipped over it.

An email window appeared, and she opened it.

Thousands of unread emails. Only one was left in the Sent Emails category, so she opened it.

It read,

_Attention fellow scholars,_

_It does not matter to me how you may feel about me, or if you've chosen to believe these ridiculous allegations, but I feel that I must share this information with as many people as possible._

_Once released from its Pokeball, the Pokémon inside will become non-hostile and return to its normal state. Release all of the Pokémon in your possession into the wild. It will ensure both their survival and your own._

_The police are at my door. I had better go to greet them._

_Oak, Ph.D._

Servine breathed a large and thankful sigh. The Professor had figured it out. They weren't looking for a Psychotic Pokémon. Eli was himself, somewhere.

_Ding._

Servine blinked.

_New Email._

"D-D-Dewott! Dewott!"

"What is it?" he asked, dropping the operation manual and rushing to Servine.

_New Email._

"How…"

"Why? What does it say?" asked Pikachu.

"Servine just got messaged by someone," said Dewott.

_New Email._

Servine's vine wavered over the message for a moment. She looked to Dewott for reassurance, and he nodded.

Amazing.

Her vine hit the screen.

"Okay," Dewott started. "Now, try to hit the Open Message button this time."

Her vine hit the screen again.

_Message Received November 13__th__, 67_

_From: Professor Samuel Oak_

_If you're reading this and are surprised to hear from me, don't be. This message was programmed to appear once my prototype interface had accessed my email account. If you are still at my home, then you may have what it is that I have left there. _

_What is there was once intended for delivery to one Ash Ketchum, so don't expect him to be cooperative with you. I trust you to take good care of this Pokémon._

_You now inherit the responsibilities of my research as well. Make use of the Pokémon provided to protect yourself and the supplies. Most of them are one of a kind, including this interface you are using. I hope you have clean fingers. Ha ha._

_This new Pokeball is one of a kind as well. I am not completely sure if it will work, but, to be safe, release the Pokémon inside anyway. It would be better for him to run away rather than attack you._

_Look for the windmill outside of my home. If it is still standing, these items shall be at the very top. I hope you're as clever as you appear to be for having gotten this far._

_Watch your step on the way up._

Servine powered down the interface.

Pikachu was the first to speak.

"Oak didn't know how long the Pokeball would be in there. He thought someone would come by in a week or two…"

"Did you hear what I read, Pikachu?" Servine asked. "_If it is still standing_. He knew damn well how long that Pokémon would be in there!"

"I… I can't even…" Piplup muttered. "A whole year?"

Pikachu groaned. "I may have to euthanize a Pokémon today. Oh-Mew, oh-Mew. And it's one that I know, too."

Dewott stepped up, saying, "I'll do it for you, Pikachu, if it comes to that."

Servine couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Hold on! You're talking like it's already been decided! We don't how he'll react to being released. Our job is to go up there and get whatever Oak left for us, release the Pokémon, and _then _decide what to do with him."

Servine waited for something, but it never came. She waited more, and asked, "Piplup?"

His body was already over the windowsill, and his feet and tail flipped over soon after, sending him to the grass with a _thud_. Piplup shouted for the others, "Hurry up! The longer we wait, the longer what's-his-face is in that Pokeball!"

Servine heard his feet plod into the direction of the windmill, with Pikachu and Dewott following through the window. She picked up her new interface and joined them on the lawn, trouncing over the uncut grass and weeds and into the tower-like windmill, racing to see what was at the top.

Hating to think it, but hurting to repress it, this was starting to get really fun.

…

The Professor that added some heavy-duty additions to his famous windmill in his later years, apparently.

A pillar rose from the base of the windmill to the very top, keeping shape, while the walls surrounding the structure slanted inward to the roof. A winding staircase leading to the top platform made them wonder if Oak had built this all himself.

The first sight seen on reaching the top of the stairs was a large eastern window, then, the sun on the horizon. The pillar stretched to the very tip and stopped there. The first thing Pikachu did was walk over to the window and stare out at the sun, waiting for anyone and anything who wanted to gaze. He wondered if people from town would come up to Oak's windmill to sit up here and enjoy the sunrise, since it was the only purpose that Pikachu could think of that seemed practical enough to put in a window in a windmill for. The shadow of the wall draped itself around the sunlight on the floor, which now held Pikachu's shadow.

"Snap out of it, guy!" yelled Dewott.

"We found something," Servine observed, luring Pikachu away from the window and setting her interface to the side. "It's a metal box."

Just as she said, it was a metal box. A plain, metal box. The Professor, known for his extravagance, had unnerved Pikachu with this plain, metal box, but he didn't hate him for it.

He hated him for trapping a Pokémon inside of it.

"How do you get it open?" he asked.

Servine, acting on her cue, lifted the overly large monitor and held the back to the lid of the box. A circle appeared on the screen.

_SCANNING…_

The box clicked.

"How did you know?" Dewott asked, astounded.

"I'm just feeling silly today."

As long as she wasn't mad at him or crying, he could tolerate silly. Now, to deal with the box.

"So," began Servine, "do you guys want me to make it dramatic like last time, or just flip it open?"

Servine didn't wait for an answer. Maybe Dewott had taken his stance on 'silly' too quickly…

Of course, the first item encountered is the one they know nothing about. A red, handle-shaped object, the one known as the Age of Pokémon to Pikachu and Dewott, sat on top of a series of clothes that hid the next item underneath. Piplup and Servine simply knew the object as 'AP' by the initials on its side. "What does it do?" she asked.

Pikachu reached for it first, holding it in his hand like a weapon. A button was near his thumb, and above it was the display. Oak had been telling the truth.

_Hold the nozzle to the skin._ Pikachu held his free arm out and pressed the tip of the AP to it.

He pressed the button.

Pikachu felt a prick and the blood from his wound get sucked into the handle. It beeped, the numbers on the dial flashed, and it finished.

_5__**25**_

"Five and twenty-five," Dewott said. "You're five years old."

"Ow," said Pikachu. "You want to see how old you are, Dewott?"

"Sure," but Dewott, when handed the AP, pressed the nozzle to his thigh. He assumed that he wouldn't even feel anything there.

_Beebeep._

_4__**20**_

"Level Twenty?" asked Pikachu.

"Four years old?" asked Dewott. "I was in that Pokémon Center longer than I thought. How about you, Snivy – I mean, Servine?"

Servine blushed.

"You'll have to do it for me," and she tilted her neck sideways for the prick. Dewott put his hand on her to steady her movements, taking the opportunity to feel how cold she was, and finally putting the nozzle to her skin.

_4__**22**_

But she bled a lot more than Dewott thought she would. When he pressed both his hands to her neck to stop the bleeding, she got a panicked look in her eyes. He tried to calm her down with his voice.

"Relax, Servine, it's okay. I have it under control. It just needs a band-aid and a kiss."

"O-ookay." The voice crack was higher than normal for her. Dewott kept one hand on the wound and passed the AP over to Piplup, forgetting than he had no fingers either.

It didn't stop him. Piplup handled the handle like he'd used it a million times over, pressing the tip against his toe and clicking the button.

_3__**19**_

He let it clatter against the floor.

"That was interesting," Piplup said. "What else is in there?"

"Piplup."

"Yeah, Dewott?"

Dewott still held his hand against Servine's neck, but the blood was beginning to seep out of his control. "Can you go back down to the lab and get something to wrap around Servine's neck from her bag? I forgot how easily she bleeds."

Servine whimpered.

"No, no, it's okay, Servine." He turned again to Piplup. "And make it fast."

"Fast," Piplup repeated. "I'll be right back!" Backing up to the stairs, he ran back down to the bottom and out of sight.

Pikachu unveiled the next layer of the box – and it happened to be just what Servine needed. He picked the box up and said, "Get Servine into the sunshine so she can heal quicker. The old man loaded this thing up with bandages and Super Potions."

"Really?!" screamed Servine, on the verge of hyperventilating and being half-dragged by Dewott into the path of the sunlight that shined through the windmill's window while Pikachu lugged the box over near the two.

When he felt he was close enough, Pikachu dumped the box over. Out spilled Super Potions, bottles of assorted medications which he had no training to identify, boxes of bandages, and a lone, normal, shrunken Pokeball.

Pikachu swept up the box and bandages and ripped it open. He tried to ignore the Pokeball.

The band-aids inside were too large for the small hole in Servine's neck, but it was better to use it now instead of leaving it off. Pikachu traded hands with Dewott, giving him the bandage and applying it to Servine's pathetic wound, but the bleeding had increased enough to scare both of them. Dewott heaved a sigh and patted her sore spot.

"There you go, girl. You're all patched up. How'd I do for my first operation?"

"Pretty well," said Servine, still frightened, "but you forgot the last step."

Pikachu picked up the Pokeball. It looked like any normal one, but inside was a Pokémon who'd been in there for a consecutive 52 weeks. Rolling it in his hands, it felt normal, it felt familiar.

Pressing the button once would inflate the orb, and it did.

Now, pressing button again would unleash the Psychotic inside. Holding it down would release a safe, rational, loving Pokémon.

"Are you guys re-"

Pikachu stopped.

Servine arched her neck away from Dewott, as she did when he had taken her AP, but Servine wouldn't feel pain this time. He leaned his head forward and kissed her neck, making it all better.

But that's not why Pikachu stopped.

"- Hey! I got the bandages! -"

_**CRASH!**_

"HIT THE FLOOR!"

Pikachu abandoned the Pokeball. Piplup lost his balance and fell back down the steps, hitting Pansage and Axew on the way. Dewott and Servine were showered in glass shards.

His feet came out from under him before he had time to think. Pikachu's chin slammed into the floor and a large, swinging object slammed into Dewott's side, taking Servine with him in the fray. He did all he could to protect her, but Dewott had been the one to take most of the impact.

Dewott was thrown across the room and into the pillar while Servine rolled herself into a coil, covering her own head before springing to her feet and looking for the source of the chaos. Screams echoed from downstairs, asking what happened and if the others were okay, but Pikachu wasn't exactly deft on what had happened yet.

He stumbled onto two legs and looked around. Pikachu saw a broken window, Servine in her very own glass menagerie, and Dewott pinned to the pillar by an abnormally large _bone_.

They'd been ambushed. And if they'd been ambushed, then Buneary was about to be ambushed.

Pikachu took a step forward to stop that from happening,

and kicked the release button on the Pokeball he'd dropped.

…

He was hazy. He was dead and he couldn't think straight, as if he were in a dream where he had no control. He couldn't remember his name.

Dewott. No, it was Joshua. Joshua the Oshawott.

_Shit. Servine!_

Dewott lurched forward like a car occupant still restrained by their seatbelt in a car accident, and came to realize that he was pinned by something heavy. What was worse, he knew what it was.

A Marowak bone.

"Not her," he cursed.

And if she had gone so far as to attack him directly in front of the others, then he must have done something awfully stupid to piss her off.

He pushed the bone off of himself easily once he knew what it was. This time, the Marowak had gone too far. She was going to get it. He'd given her enough slack as it was.

But if the Marowak wanted to play, Dewott would happily oblige.

He saw a bright light out of the corner of his eye, assuming Pikachu had released either their new partner or a potential suicide victim, and he ran his eyes over Servine. He saw her, sad and confused, saying the words with her expression that he did not want to hear. _Don't go, Dewott. It's too dangerous. Stay with me._

He pounded forward, gained as much speed as possible, stomped through the broken glass, and leapt from the window in quick pursuit. This time, he would find her.

…

The light shot into Pikachu's face, stunning his senses and bringing pain to his eyes. He attempted to back out and rub the pain away, but he felt something else. A paw. And then, he saw it.

The eyes of a Psychotic.

Pikachu thrived to escape, but the Psychotic latched onto him with every appendage. The light still lingering, he thrust his head forward, hoping to make contact and loosen the creature's grip.

His forehead drove into the snout of…

… from the groans it produced, Pikachu knew it none other than to be his old friend, Buizel.

The light dissipated. Pikachu knew this homecoming had been a mistake.

"Bui!" his murderer agreed.

Pikachu sabotaged Buizel's close-range Hydro Pump with smacks to the face from his now bloody forehead, littered with bits of the enemy's chipped teeth. Pikachu would have kept his ground had he not stepped on Buizel's Pokeball, alerting Buizel to its existence, and tumbling to the floor with him, arm in arm.

Buizel clambered off of Pikachu, kicking him in his face to get to his own Pokeball, but Pikachu didn't plan on letting yet another one of his friends become a permanent reminder of himself.

The weasel had two tails to choose from, so Pikachu chose them both, wrapping his fingers in their fur and around the width. Buizel looked back and barked, unable to reach his Pokeball successfully.

Pikachu flexed, grunted, and managed to swing the slightly larger Buizel into the air in the same fashion as the Charmander. He followed through, brought him back up, and swung him into the pillar.

The pillar cracked, breaking the foundation of the windmill in half.

The floor around Pikachu cracked and splintered, sending the Pokeball rolling in random directions which he tried desperately to keep up with. The walls supporting the window caved in, spitting their fibrous wood particles into the air around Pikachu, and out went the Pokeball, right into the open air through the broken window, landing somewhere on the ground below.

He had no time left.

Where was Buizel? It didn't matter. They would both die if Pikachu didn't think of something.

"Servine!"

No answer came. Servine was gone. But now what? He could leave Buizel and save himself, or risk his own ass to try to save them both. Buizel was Psychotic. There was no coming back from it, they said. Once a Psycho, always a Psycho.

_One day, he's going to bite off more than he can chew and it's going to come back to bite him._

In retrospect, the decision was easy.

Pikachu dashed through a rain of debris, the ceiling above him dribbling drywall and plaster onto his head, and the blood on his head dribbling into his eyes. His goal was not obscured by the objections of his body. The pillar was not broken. Buizel was right in front of him the entire time, stuck in the crease of the pillar's two halves.

Pikachu went for the Marowak bone first, snatching it up too quickly for Buizel's paws to catch him, but if he remained in that position much longer, he would be crushed. Pikachu held the bone in his left arm and tugged on Buizel's arm with his right.

Buizel popped out of the crack, and Pikachu shoved the bone in to secure the weight. The pillar shifted, but did not break.

Before the Psychotic could react, Pikachu stepped on his throat. His legs kicked, but he could not move.

Finally… he had him pinned.

Buizel's paw jolted the joint at Pikachu's leg, cracking the bone into several unnatural fragments, and when Pikachu howled, it was muffled only by Buizel's cry of victory at the fall of his prey. He sprung forward and took Pikachu on his face, throwing him back to the ground and mounting him for the kill.

Pikachu looked into those eyes. The whiteness of them was overwhelming. Buizel's teeth neared his throat.

He lifted his arm, for his last-ditch effort, and let his elbow strike the floorboards underneath.

They sank, only slightly. Buizel looked around, confused. He looked at the ceilings, the pillar, the window, the stairs, but he didn't look at Pikachu, who saw what he needed. It rolled closer, closer, closer…

… Pikachu took hold of the object, met with those Psychotic eyes, and slammed the Age of Pokémon into his temple.

Buizel reeled in pain, they sank again, and the floorboards broke.

They fell, as Pikachu intended, to the ground below.

…

"Oh no, Buneary, look!"

Spike's hand pointed into the air. Buneary spun to see what was the matter.

"Wow," she said, "is that what I think it is?"

"Yup!" Spike answered.

_POKEOUTFITTERS_

_FOR ALL YOUR POKEFASHION NEEDS!_

They were beginning to doubt that there was a PokeOutfitters in Pallet Town, but perhaps Pikachu had exaggerated when he described how small his home town was.

It was a chain of stores along the west end of the Pallet Town Bank District. There were plenty others, but this was the one they'd recognized the logo from.

"This is perfect for you, Buneary. Now, we can transform you into a proper girl!"

"Whatever," Buneary scoffed, sharing a giggle with her friend before entering the store.

Scrafty and Pachirisu looked at each other. One looked up, one looked down.

"I guess we're going in here," said Pachirisu.

"So do I," said Scrafty. "Do you think they have anything for a guy Pokémon?"

"Only one way to find out. Mush, horsie!"

…

Pikachu stood over his unconscious companion, the one he once knew as Buizel, in what was formerly known as a windmill, it the ruins of the town his trainer lived in.

And it was all his fault. But he had hope.

Literally. In his hand, he had the hope.

He held the hope up for Buizel to see, not that he could have seen it, but the thought of the motion comforted Pikachu.

Pikachu just needed to add the last step. A lot of thoughts were swirling through his head as he aimed the Pokeball, ready to release Buizel.

Even in his crazy, homicidal state, Buizel was still a great fighter. Pikachu would easily have beaten him if he'd used Electric Type tactics, but that could be said for any Pokemon that he went up against.

Or, it used to. Another thing on his mind was the pain in his broken thigh. Now, he was on the injureds list.

Then, there was Dewott, who'd gone to chase down that Marowak.

And Servine, who'd gone to chase down Dewott.

And Axew and Emolga and Pansage, who'd gone after Servine and Dewott without giving Pikachu a second thought.

"Fuck, me. Just get it over with."

Leaning on his good leg, Pikachu held the button down until the blue aura appeared, and promptly left. Then, he dropped the Pokeball on the ground, in this case, on a piece of wood where the ground should be. Pikachu pointed a finger at the useless ball and did what he did best – a vicious lightning bolt tore through it, blowing it apart.

His part was done. Now, it was up to Buizel to get his act together.

Pikachu hobbled pathetically over broken boards and rusty nails to get close to Buizel, sitting down when he felt he was close enough, and he waited for him.

Looking over, Buizel remained unconscious, but at least he would wake up to a friend's face.

* * *

_Chapter Four uploaded on January 5th, 2013, 3:10 PM Central Standard Time. Visit my profile for more information. I hope you enjoyed. Remember to review, fave and follow. It would really help me out. Words this chapter: 12,604_


	5. 5

**An Origin Story**

…

The inclusion of a stop at the town's local shop had delayed their search for any signs of life in the region almost indefinitely, not that it had seemed to bother Spike. She even insisted on it. Even worse, she'd brought these friends of hers into an element completely out of their comprehension.

What would you have pictured inside a Pokémon fashion hotspot? - a question that would have caught any other Pokémon of the rising trainers with their pants down, Scrafty specifically. Spike, the spiky-eared Pikachu and a fact still ungraspable to Buneary, had learned strange amounts of information and even stranger topics on which were foreign to her time period. The human inventions, except for one, never drew angst from the wildlife, leading Buneary to her conclusion that Spike, under her tomboyishness and in a much similar manner to Emolga, just wanted to be thought of as pretty, and she wanted Buneary herself to be pretty as well. Then, Pikachu would fall in love with Buneary because of how pretty Spike made her. Pikachu was Spike's real goal, or maybe she just needed time and distraction from the abuse she suffered at the hands, feet, teeth, and pride of the _Charmer_, as she'd begun calling him.

And the _Eli_ that Buneary had heard so much about, she had, in reality, heard nothing about. From the short time they had known her before, Pikachu and Buneary, Piplup, Pachirisu, and the recently-discovered Buizel she was not yet aware of, dreamed of many things while time passed from their last interaction, thinking Spike, a Pichu at the time, and they would never meet again, as was the cruel custom. After traveling for miles to reach destinations and having to move on sometimes hours later, friends would be made and then promptly abandoned. No one ever stuck.

But Spike broke the rule.

Not only had she broken it, but she'd become Buneary's closest friend in a matter of hours. She killed a Charmander, a Psychotic, and an apparent rapist. Spike convinced this rabbit that she hadn't seen for years to reclaim her old self in the wake of global hysteria and take a chance on Pikachu – but this was far from their current objective. First step, _do it up_. Buneary was capable of doing even _this_ on her own… a secret that grew into something she thought she could trust with Spike, but not yet. She would suggest using the fact in their effort to attract Pikachu, but Buneary knew what kind of girl Pikachu is attracted to, or assumed she did. Someone strong and talented, brave and beautiful. She was half correct. Seeing dead bodies every day of her life can make her forget things. Seeing the one she loved be the one to kill them took its toll.

Flashing bloody tails of iron, bolts of light stronger than the ones that fell from the sky, and his signature fists that he inexplicably gained from his earliest of journeys, among all the pain those brought to the world, they wanted Pikachu to gaze upon something splendid, feminine, attractive, and lovely. Buneary knew at one time these words would have applied to her, and she would jump to defend her beauty or bask in it with unhesitant self-satisfaction. The thought of Pikachu admiring her again, telling her how well she appeared, even _touching _her in the softest way guilted her confidence. All in all, it was the only thing she could ever hope to look forward to. If Spike helped her in this, Buneary would be beside her always and through anything.

Yet, mating was foreign to her. Spike said they'd save that talk for later. She remembered that Pikachu was framed once for being the one who raped Snivy, and rape had something to do with sex, and rape was bad. Was sex bad, then? Later, Spike said. Buneary thought this was weird: Spike was undoubtedly younger than her, hormones in all, experiences behind her and a fresh start in her mind, but still young, and she'd done three things Buneary had yet to do. Lose her virginity, kill somebody, and smart off to Pikachu. Buneary held no desire for any of those. Lately, though, she questioned how much she _actually_ loved Pikachu…

"Buneary, snap out of it."

Her eyes had been drifty and loose the moment she entered the building, like she was re-experiencing the past. The trainer she once tried on outfits with, danced with, slept with and ate with was again beside her with huge eyes, mouth open, ignorantly fantasizing what possibilities she could make for her Pokémon, Buneary and Piplup, Pachirisu, Quilava, Mamoswine, and Togetic. Buneary felt sorry for her… and for herself. But her pity went to Dawn. Every day, she told herself that she was safe somewhere, on another continent, on a ship, with Ash and Cilan and Iris, and maybe Brock was there too. How their trainers must have felt about leaving their Pokémon alone in Unova to a certain gruesome death, perhaps after torture and a sexually horrifying endeavor. And that's exactly what had happened. No one counted on Pikachu to be the guy, to step down and be the one to lower himself to the Psychotic's standards so that what remained of his friends could keep their lives and innocence, to willingly subject himself to experimental anabolic steroids on the advice of the 'so called' companions. He killed as many regular Pokémon as he had Psychotics on the path to Kanto for his friends, predators that hunted Pokémon just to survive, yet no one else wanted to go as far as that. Was the constant self-abuse and distancing to punish himself for letting Ash get away?

"Bun…"

She pawed at the itch on her eye, wishing he would finally forget.

"I'm sorry, Spike," Buneary said, lowly. "It's hard seeing everything like this. I… I used to come here…"

Spike tickled her palm caringly, asking if Buneary would rather leave.

"No," she said, wiping an eye. "I can do it."

Scrafty and Pachirisu, one wearing the other as a fur mink, said their fare-thee-wells and promised to come running if the girls sounded like they were in trouble. Spike was reassured by their nobility, most likely taught to them by Pikachu, but she felt that an Aura Guardian would be more than enough protection. She let them go without another word as Buneary recomposed herself.

"You know your way around these places, Buneary, so where are we off to?"

She needn't answer – Spike would take the lead for her anyway. Paw in hand, eyes adjusted to the darkness of the store and the quietness of Pallet, she let her friend guide her. Hopefully, Spike knew what she was doing. Pikachu's life depended on it.

…

**Episode1: A Fresh Perspective**

**Chapter Five: **_Like A Furjin, Part One of Two_

…

Since the beginning, Pallet Town was a personification of a phrase. It was small, happy, but utterly generic. The only significance it held was the resident Professor Oak, a man who single-handedly brought on the Third Era with his invention of the Pokéball. This orb of power revolutionized point-placement teleportation, Energy-Matter Conversion, mental manipulation (to a morally just extent), and the worldwide economic trade of Pokémon which quickly became Japan's main export. No one pinpointed exactly when the Third Era began – whether it started the day the product was successfully used, the release of it to the general public or somewhere along the line when the world reached a refreshing tranquility. Most associate it with the creation of the United Pokémon Nations, an organization labeled by Japan as a threat to their income and independence, but Oak cared not about money.

'Looks can be deceiving'… a phrase personified by Pallet Town.

The streets were untouched as Scrafty looked upon them. White and yellow houses with red-shingled roofs and metal-walled shops and stores, dirt roads, long green grass. Grass that reflected the orange light of the sun, walls that were stained with it. Orange was a dominant color – the dirt, the buildings, the edges of the sky as it cut through the land and sucked the pictures into another realm. The mysterious windmill that watched over them all. It seemed like evening. His eyelids heaved.

The site would be difficult to navigate since Scrafty and Pachirisu would repeatedly have to look over their shoulders out a window or stop to listen for enemies, though **so far **the village showed no signs of human or Pokémon. They'd not ventured far either – not that they would even dare, being less than half of the size of their normal, and with only a fourth of the fighting power. Scrafty was recovering from his burned hide, strained neck and chipped headpiece, and Pachirisu was the overall weakest member of the squad. Pachirisu was rather insightful while Scrafty was often dense or obtuse. Though Pikachu had not commanded them to, they drifted toward each other, as Spike had with Buneary, and they knew, combined, their strengths would counter each other's weaknesses.

A rack of belts gleamed with tainted sunlight and caught Scrafty's attention, but Pachirisu's head had been pointed toward the items long before his friend had noticed them.

"Maybe this place… maybe it ain't so bad after all," remarked Scrafty.

Pachirisu jumped from his head and met him by the stalls. Scrafty selected the lightest, strongest and blackest designs, knowing his choice would remain around his waist for the rest of his life - or until he had to 'make'.

"You can't just… ditch the pants, Scrafty?" asked Pachirisu. "It's not like you're hiding anything."

"Unfortunately for me, Patchy, I don't have fur like you," Scrafty said. "It gets pretty damn chilly if I don't get something to protect my valuables."

Pachirisu scratched his ear. "Axew doesn't have fur, and Ser-"

"It's the fucking principle!" he shouted, and the conversation was over. The style of belt he's chosen required the wearer to loop the end through duel buckles, over the latter buckle and under the former, tightening it by pulling harshly. It was convenient and perfect for a Pokémon on the go – it also had writing on it, writing neither him nor Pachirisu could read. He guessed Dewott would be able to decipher it, but he didn't know if the otter could read what appeared to be English letters. Servine and her pupil exclusively specialized in Japanese, but for now, he just needed help tightening the belt.

He asked Pachirisu for assistance. Scrafty put his back against the wall and used his thick fingers the loop the device thru its buckles, then having Pachirisu grip the end with his paws. One quick yank brought the belt tight around Scrafty's awkwardly pear-shaped body. Using the opportunity of the sudden crescendo of activity, he got Pachirisu's attention.

Scrafty looked out to the front of the store, then back down at Pachirisu, saying, "Pachirisu… I'm confused…"

Pachirisu looked up, then averted, still holding the end of Scrafty's belt. He could feel Scrafty's large white eyes looking at the back of his head. What did he mean? Pachirisu could not tell.

"I know what you mean, Scrafty," he said. A well of air caught in his throat, preventing him from finishing.

"… Pikachu said… he knew Spike before all this…"

Pachirisu looked back up, letting go.

"And you and Buneary… and Piplup, how… does she know you guys?"

The blood drained from his faced, but a gasp released itself at the same time. Pachirisu sighed, finally knowing the answer to one of his questions and also avoiding an awkward misunderstanding…

The silence that comes between two individuals as one waits for an answer and the other takes in a question struck them, and panic set in as they saw each other, eyes darting around the empty aisles. They were in a store, alone. No humans. But the humans made the store. The humans made the roads and the clothes and the buildings and the PokéBalls. They made the trees and the land and the bushes. They worked and cleaned, and what did the Pokémon make other than more Pokémon – something they thought they possessed the right to, but humans had the ability to craft even those from cloning devices and DNA experimentation. They never polluted… taking solar power from the sun and hydroelectric power from rivers, along with wind power from the skies and geothermal power from the earth's center, they used what was given to them for the good of the planet. Their worst enemies were themselves, then Pokémon in subsequence. Now, the Pokémon owned them.

And without the humans… the Pokémon would not survive.

Pachirisu's heart settled back into a slow tempo. What had just happened? Did the same strange physical anomaly strike them both at the same time, resulting in the coincidence, or was there some real danger lurking? His tail curled over his head, shivering. His buckteeth stapled his frowning expression.

Anyway, Scrafty had his belt. The squirrel's frustration over the orange monster's sinking apparel would cease. He twiddled his small paws, wondering what to do next. Scrafty picked at his teeth, seemingly bored.

He'd explain to Scrafty that hid belt choice was flawed, that he'd need his help in tightening and untightening it every time he had to take it off, but later. Pansage would be more than happy to do it for him - breaking bad news to someone had become a specialty of his.

"Well?"…

"What?" Pachirisu asked.

Scrafty cleared his throat, saying, "How did you guys meet Spike?"

"The Pikachu?" Pachirisu said, having no chance to slap himself in the head immediately after. _Who else would it be, you idiot?..._

"Was she ever anything else?" Scrafty scoffed. He flicked his ear at Pachirisu, a symbol of disrespect. It was his way of saying, _I have no outer hearing appendage, yet I'm not as dull as you. Pay attention, goofball. _

Pachirisu held back his urge to laugh while Scrafty shook his head.

This was going to be a long morning.

…

**Shhhhtttttttttnnnklkkk!...**

… _**ting… ting… ting…**_

A collapsing tower of glasses and cheap jewelry cascaded the tile floor with shining whaddyacallems as it bounced out of place and over Spike's ear. Buneary rushed to her side, flipping over the table and sliding around piles of broken glass and the stink of spilled cologne. With Spike holding her head and closing her eyes, lying face-down with her side against counter that held many expensive pieces, the rack merely scattered its random contents over her back, making quite an uncomfortable and cold feeling to her fur and a loud thump inside her chest.

She peeked up when Bun set her paw on her head, and many plastic tags clinked onto the ground and her body shifted. Spike smiled stupidly. Her tooth was chipped.

"Can't you go _five seconds _without destroying this entire store?!"

"How else was I going to get the one on the top, Bunny?" said Spike. "It's… so… cute!"

Their adventures guided them to the Aisle of Specific Jewelries and Fabi-Luscious-Fashions (with the lack of reading skills making the journey harder to conduct). When they arrived, Buneary made sure to pardon Spike's general disagreeability with the Pokémon construct of common sense and eye-foot coordination. She also disdained the store's attitude, finding it atrociously out-of-style, or _passé_. For their mission, though, the mood fit.

"Where'd it go?" Spike spit a little, leaving blood on her lip, and pushed herself up with the side of the stall. Items cluttered off of her back and piled below her, most of them breaking, and she nearly had a heart attack. Buneary's foot trampled over a corsage and Spike's eyes grew eyes within them, screaming at her friend for being so damnably clumsy and trapping a cry in her mouth, while the rabbit simply stepped off the material goods and sat back, ear drooping.

Buneary had to shake Spike to summon her from her sudden coma, and took the chance her wipe her mouth of dribble. "I didn't mea-"

Spike grabbed Buneary's right ear and pointed, mouth agape. "Look!" she screamed.

Her ear caught by Spike's vice grip, Buneary had to wait until she was turned around to see what Spike had fangirled so voraciously upon. The fact that Spike had grabbed Buneary's imperfection, the ear that she hid from everyone, the one she'd been more ashamed of than anything and went through extreme lengths to hide…

… meant nothing to her the moment she saw what Spike had to offer.

The acme of physical beauty sat in the rack at the store's magazine rack. A monument worthy of worship and wonder in the eyes of the worldwide population, any life-bearing being being flushed of sadness by this sight, a goddess, a kindness, and one that had been missing for far too long. Spike was almost afraid to approach it, but she did anyway.

The cover glittered with a freshly wrapped and lone-sitting version of an article from many months' past. The store was made brighter by its character – because, and only because, of the cover model. The steps to her face grew shorter and shorter, as if Spike could not already tell who it was, but didn't want it to be true. The breaths of the girl were dim. Her hands stuck out for its embrace.

**PokéStyle** was the cover title. On a beach in a coastal city played one Pokémon, surrounded by a sphere of ice that torn the sun's rays into jealous shreds of a joy's afternoon struggle with the heated conflagration throughout her body, one that made her more desirable than any mature male could resist either hiding from or sweating over, one that left their imaginations free to play with perverted fantasies over this otherwise innocent pose she had been striking.

She leaned forward with her right leg kicked backward and her left at the forefront. Her wrists curved outward under her chin to provide a cute yet unnecessary support for her head, with nothing to rest her elbows on. She winked at the reader, a sea of tinted green erupting from that one glorious eye that remained open, a green that had been added by a contact that had been made by a human corporation. And the smile brought it all together; so much so that whoever was looking at the picture would barely notice the fashion she was sporting.

No doubt, that year-old picture of Buneary would have made the males go crazy.

…

**Spiky-eared Pichu.**

Pachirisu remembered the adventures that had brought them all together, the travels that seemed so long ago compared to the struggles they went through now…

Back in the good days, when all they did was practice and laugh. When Dawn, his trainer, and Ash, Pikachu's owner, trekked through and beyond the Sinnoh region, winning battles and competitions, watching as Buneary tried winning Pikachu's heart through gentle brushes against his fur or winking at him occasionally, then watching Pikachu either shrink back in confusion or give off the slightest, the absolutely smallest, nearly_ undetectable_ hint of a blush – the blush that would occasionally make them all question just how one-sided their romantic relationship truly was.

Back when they were young.

Sometimes, strange things happened, but not the regular kind of strange. It was the type of thing that only ever happened to a small percentage of lifeforms, and to whom it happened, it happened with great intensity and at many intervals. These events deemed worthy only for the few to enact are carefully placed, seemingly by coincidence, at the threshold of the only life that has the ability to craft life's own experience from it and still follow through with the objective. Right now, no one is aware… but that's part of the fun.

When Spike first comes into the frame – as the peppy young Spiky-eared Pichu named Mimi – she is damned by her own parents' incompetence in timing and judgment.

It is only by her half-brother, a shiny Pichu named Gary, that she excels the limits she is born with as a father's bastard and learns to open her heart… a quality many Pokémon lacked in the Central time period known as The Second Era.

The truth of the situation is, as seen in every case that exists, this placements of forces was no work of luck or God. This 'Gary' happened to be one of those special lives, the ones that have extraordinary events lain at their feet over and over again for them to solve, like a rat in a maze or a chimp with a stick and some honey.

This story begins not with Gary, but with the previous protagonists, unawares of the ultimate taboo they have, will have and has been committed in their innocent actions.

Before Ash met Iris and Cilan, before he knew the existence of the region 'Unova' or the Pokémon that dwelled within, he journeyed with a young lass named Dawn and her collection of Pokémon that included both Buneary and Piplup, back when Pikachu had not yet ruined his friendship with the penguin, and also with a talented Pokémon Breeder named Brock.

At the time, Pikachu had a wide array of friends he'd thought as eternal companions. Piplup, thought he was quite feminine at times and fell for his own romantic blunders, was the most emotionally sensitive of his friends, but also the one that Pikachu got along with the most, him being less thick-headed (not to say he wasn't arrogant or stubborn) about certain topics than the others.

Buizel was the tough-guy Water Type, a bully that'd been one of the toughest motherfuckers Pikachu'd ever had the displeasure of fighting. He'd often been called "Bruiser", but it soon became a nickname that had a reversed as well as external application – he was just like any play-it-cool, too-good-for-you kind of Pokémon after their trainers finally caught him, acting like he didn't care, and Pikachu didn't take to him immediately…

…

_**Dew-OOOOOOTT!...**_

Axew's good eye shot up to Emolga, and she flew in the direction of Servine's heightened roar. He wasted no time in pushing off with his powerful hinds immediately, dragging himself with his forepaws, and they were gone.

All he had to do was follow the scent. Emolga was his eyes.

She veered slightly off-course, but Axew corrected her with a loud chirp as he aimed his pointed snout directly at her silhouette. The visible twitch of her ears gave him his assurance that she'd heard, and he was gone again. Servine's scent was growing.

She knew better than to follow Dewott. But, now, she must have forgotten herself, what she'd been told, what to do and what to ignore, to let Dewott have his secrets, his methods, his… ego. Axew's head was in more of a knot than anything he'd had before. At least Emolga seemed able to recognize his signals… that meant her amnesia hadn't affected anything long-term. Maybe it would stay in his favor.

He remembered… Piplup. He'd come running back inside, only he'd stopped flip-flopping across the tile when he walked through the foyer and slowed to a fast waddle. Pansage asked him what was 'up'. What followed was a series of events and unnecessary shouting that led to Piplup rushing back outside with armfuls of adhesive bandaging and a Dragon following him, as a drunken Emolga and an aged Pansage fought each other for whatever reason.

Then, it attacked them. The bone monster of Hoenn that had nearly killed them before… the one that killed Sierra, and in doing so, saved each and every one of their lives.

It never _tried_ to save them. And now it was trying to kill Servine.

And she'd run after it.

"(Can she find us, was it her plan, maybe Dewott'll stop her if she's, if he's fast enough, maybe, maybe, maybe…)" Axew's breathing was short and his words cut each other off before the next even started, thinking through the possible outcomes. Every conclusion came back to them all dying if they didn't find a way back out of the forest. He held a hand up to his eye. He was blind. His voice picked up. "No, no…"

_**Swoosh.**_

The drop-off had been more than he'd expected. Throwing his hands and arms out with a ragelust of furious desperation caused his fingers to swell with static as the thick branch he'd tried to set his feet upon was clasped with the force of a titan and swung the body connected to them through the air like a lead weight. Landing in the next dead tree, feet-first this time, Dewott blinked and resumed his chase.

His naturally thick and muscled thighs, capable of withstanding the most torment of any his appendages, easily propelled him across gaps several meters in length.

The twigs of figs and ferns and scattered pinecones on the ground that came with the whiter winter months remained untouched by the expert's feet. His main goal would be untraceable from the ground. When the hunter hunted a hunter, he must know how to think in a way he was unaccustomed to. He must learn to think like himself. He must learn to exploit his own weaknesses. He must learn that, by exhibiting a knowledge of his enemy, he is leaving his own weakness unguarded… the element of feigning inadequacy had been lost. Dewott's enemy knew what he was doing.

But he could tell he was wearing her down. The marks on the tree branches became more and more superficial as he advanced.

Dewott flailed his arms over his head and out to each side as he descended onto another sturdy branch, shaking it up and down as the weight sank in, and he observed the latest marks with suspicion, because something… something just wasn't right…

_**Caw.**_

Emolga lifted her chin back to the air. _What in Arceus' name was that_?

"Shit!" she squeaked as a gust of wind threw her barreling farther into the endless sky than she'd wanted, the wind pushing her face up like her cheeks had been taped to her forehead. Her arms tucked into each other and her ears flattened, her body tilted over itself, and she dove down sharply, back through the atmosphere and into Axew's area. She flicked her middle finger at the sourceless sound.

She squinted against the early morning sunlight, trying to find the Pokémon that had made the noise.

Finding none, she slanted her body forward, hoping to land somewhere near Axew before she fainted again.

…

Dewott's hand slid over the scratches on the bark, counting them as his fingers thumped through each groove.

_One._

_Two._

_Three…_

He suppressed a yelp as a splinter sank in, instead choosing to shake his palm over his head in hopes of flicking free the pointed wood spec. Dewott had always known a certain paranoia that associated itself with the Marowak, but the newfound conspiracies sorting through his head terrified him.

_I can't believe she's as stupid as she makes herself seem,_ he thought as he freed the splinter from a callous. The wood he'd drug his hand across was dead, and had long dried out – strange, since he'd only been chasing the Marowak for minutes. Also, the number of gashes on this branch…

… Dewott almost hadn't heard it, but by the time had, it was too late for him to react. A flash of light green darted under his field of vision as a crack of thunder echoed from the base of his perch with such force that the tree underneath him was uprooted. His legs pushed off but were simultaneously thrown over his head as a high branch that fell with the sequoia struck his sellion, drawing a copious amount of blood from his nose as he yanked a scalchop free and floated, headfirst and high on the rush of pain and adrenaline, to the ground below.

He bent his shoulder and curved his momentum through his arm, impacting the ground and throwing himself into a roll. Bouncing up, he faced his attacker. Dewott bent his arm back, but stopped.

Axew's left side hunched over a half-fallen tree, a self-explanatory and head-shaped indentation scarring the trunk, all surrounded by a crater of soft brown soil and pointed protrusions of roots. Axew raised his good side to Dewott, but kept his arm against the tree. He was panting heavily, so Dewott sheathed his scalchop.

"I should have heard you charging that Giga Impact," Dewott said, cocking a hip but panting just as hard as Axew.

"Whuh? Nah, no, I…" Axew sputtered, gasping for air. His forehead was stained brown from the attack, adding to his growing list of deformities. "I didn't use Giga Impact… I just kind of ran into it? I could charge up-"

"- could charge up Giga Impact and take less damage from the brunt of your attack, but lose your element of surprise, and also lose the opportunity to use Giga Impact later," Dewott said, more to himself than to Axew as he wiped his bleeding nose. "I got scared for a second, I'll be honest. Thought you were Servine at first…"

Dewott smirked at Axew's cleverness. He harmed both himself and his target with a stealthy, powerful attack, while also using his enemy's elevation to his advantage. The two stood wordlessly for a moment, both exhausted but ready to fight. Both clearly did not want to.

"Kid…" Dewott started, earning Axew's disapproving glare. "You shouldn't be out here."

"That doesn't mean a lot coming from you," he replied. "You know who else shouldn't be out here? Servine, and it's _your _fault we're all out here looking for her right now. Pikachu's gonna have your ass once we get back, Joshy. We have responsibilities, and you need to start owning up to yours. That's how a group _works_."

Dewott sniffed, a steady stream of blood trickling slowly from his nostril. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you following me out into the woods and trying to kill me, I really do."

Axew stood straight, a look of indignant defiance in his eye.

"Maybe when you get a little more mature about these sorts of things, you'd understand that what I do, and _all _that I do, is NOT for this group."

Dewott spat into the crater, blood trailing his lip. "The only reason I follow this, what you call a family, is because I _owe _Pikachu."

"You can cut the tough stuff, lover-boy," cursed Axew, his young voice quavering a little. A look of intrigue, and a hint of anger, crossed Dewott's face. "You're out here because you want to impress Servine… right?"

"_Servine_," Dewott barked threateningly, "has nothing to do with it. I'm out here because as long as that Pokémon keeps stalking us, whether it's Psychotic or not, it's going to hurt one of us **real**-real bad, and we won't be able to save he-"

"Save who?" Axew asked. Dewott raised his fist, and Axew shrank back. What he had meant by owing Pikachu was unknown to him, but he didn't want another beating. Getting hurt by Dewott would hurt the group as a whole more than anyone. "I-I understand," he said submissively, lowering his gaze.

Dewott sighed. "I'm sorry, Axew, just… just don't call me Joshy anymore. I can't stand her dumb little nickname," he chuckled. Axew heaved a large relieved breath, understandably.

"We're all fighting against a lot of screwed-up odds right now, but I need to face this next part alone," Dewott continued. "Go get Servine and tell her what I told you, then get everyone else and make sure they're all safe somewhere, maybe farther into the town… or do what Pikachu thinks is best."

"Whatever," Axew mumbled. "I didn't think I could face you in a fight anyway. I don't think any of us could, really…"

"Take care of her?" Dewott asked, turning his back and trying to get his bearings. He jumped as he felt Axew's hand on his leg, jarred by the sudden contact.

"That should be your job, Dewott."

"I have future plans, but don't tell her I said that…" he muttered, backing away. Every moment he spent with this version of Axew both impressed and scared him, and he wasn't sure how to think of him anymore. Suddenly, he was glad Axew was lacking an iris. One of those red orbs glaring at him was almost more than he could stand, so he was sure two would overwhelm him.

A screech pierced the quiet surrounding the scene and distracted Axew long enough for Dewott to slip away without giving away his direction. Axew had turned back after seeing Emolga break through the clouds, but his partner had already gone away. Now, all that was left was to catch Servine.

He crossed his heart and hoped to die that she would never have to face a challenge like this on her own. Dewott now knew the extent of this Marowak's skill, and he planned on using it against her if he was given the chance. The tricky part, he learned a long time ago, is figuring out how to make it look like he knew what he was doing. Actually pulling it off would be a stretch, if his opponent had her wits and enough stamina to match.

The trail grew colder by the second, but he knew it wouldn't be a problem. This Marowak wanted him to find her, and he aimed to please, but his only large concern was knocking her out of the game for good without losing himself to the woods, growing wild again and returning without anything major changed. However much he tried to hide it, he loved them all, even little Axew and his confusion in maturity. The luxury of long uninterrupted walks in the forest was gone now, though.

As his legs became shakier with the strain of pushing his body from tree to tree, Dewott lost confidence in his footsteps and began landing closer to the trunk, and lower down on the levels. Dehydration was never a concern of his, though he'd long lost the feminine scent of the tall Pokémon and would be without rest until he could pick it up again.

_That should be your job. _He couldn't get those words out of his head.

As he leapt from limb to limb, straining to keep his focus and to not lose the obviously planted trail before him, he thought about what his role in his friends' lives was. He wondered how deep his relationships had actually gone with his friends.

Dewott knew he could never truly repay Pikachu for dumping his unconscious form into the river on that day that started it all. It was the day Oshawott had realized what a real hero was, what real bravery was, what _real_ sacrifice was. Pikachu had shown himself to be more of a male than he could ever achieve on that horrible day, and in realization of this, Dewott felt an obligation to Pikachu's efforts to protect this assorted group of strangers that would never naturally associate. That's how he felt at first, anyway.

Dewott also had Servine to worry about. In saving her life, he'd inadvertently become her closest friend in the world. She drove herself at him when she was scared, but her sudden lack of a will to fight was caused by his enabling of her… and also by the thought of being hurt the way she was again. Even little Scraggy had frightened her at times. She was emotionally inept to care for herself, and relied mostly on his company to keep her sanity.

Thinking about it now, it seemed clear to Dewott why she would chase after him in such a dangerous situation. He cared for her, but a friend was not what he thought of her as. His first description would be 'burden'.

When the claw marks stopped and the trees came few and far between, Dewott stopped on a knot and found strange moisture wafting through the air, carried by a humid breeze with warmth alongside it. His mind went to the hot springs of a mountainous tundra, but he knew no hot springs that existed near Pallet.

From the miniature hill he crested upon, he spied what appeared to be a large and muddy ground covered in scattered sediment.

Rocks of dull grey and black colors and of all shapes and sizes were littered on the moist ground, or the remains of what was the bottom of a river. He hopped into the crevice, a two to four foot drop, and decided that a river is exactly what it used to be. Looking up and down both directions, he tipped forward and saw that it bent in both ways, the right side curving east and the left side also curving east with small puddles dotting the ground as a trickling line of water divided the halves of the dried-up pond.

It looked less like a dried up river and more resembled a wet desert, with dark brown and cracked foundation beneath Dewott's flat feet. To him, this dead end trail was nothing more than a cruelly-placed metaphor. He flicked a pebble with his toe, and it pattered over the hard surface before slipping into a crack. The combination of wet and dry had never fit in such serenity. It was the water returning… perhaps after a drought.

The sun seemed higher in the sky than he remembered, drawing his attention as it peeked into the sky from his perspective. "Damn, that's bright," he complained, raising his arm to shield himself, then grunting in annoyance as he realized how early his chase had come to an end.

Unfortunately for him, he had no idea how right he was.

Dewott stumbled over the rough terrain, tripping occasionally over the rough uneven land, before finding a boulder large enough to give him a better view of what seemed to him to be the same river that his group had followed to arrive at the laboratory.

He dismissed using his fingers to leverage himself into place and simply bounced into place on top of the boulder. If the river still existed, excluding the pathetic stream that it had become, it was obvious that this rock would protrude from the rapids alongside the migrating Magikarp, possibly legions of them swimming in unison on their way to a spawning ground. The eagerness of any Pokémon to die was never outmatched by the sad lives of the Magikarp.

Dewott began to chuckle. "What was that line she used to sing?" he asked himself. "When the sun sets, the earth doth drizzle dew…"

There was a flash of light, in the corner of his eye.

A figure waved for him in the distance. It was short, stocky and had a round head, but by the time it got Dewott's attention, it was too late, and the object had struck him. A large femur careened into his back and nearly bent him over sideways as his limp figure was launched into a somersault. He was aware of the bone slipping past him and returning to its thrower while his body fell to earth, but that was all Dewott felt before the nothing arrived, his eyes shut, and unconsciousness conquered him.

…

The figure lowered his arms, seeing the enemy's latest catch being claimed at his expense.

It was a shame that the Dewott wasn't given a fighting chance, but he supposed that was all a part of Marowak's ingenious planning. A direct combat situation with a Water Type would be bad news for the Ground-based attacker…

It saddened him, seeing this strange Pokémon from his hiding place, fainted and most likely with a broken spine, as another incredibly deranged Pokémon descended from her hiding place to claim his corpse as her own plunder. More bones meant for sick toys she could craft from them, meaning more hunting and yet more plunder and souvenirs.

He saw her. That boned predator that leapt from rock to rock across the river, getting closer to her target. The whiskered blue mammal that lay waiting to be torn asunder and harvested from the inside out.

The figure was motionless for the longest of times. His face was expressionless. No pain or grief crossed his eyes. But some strange sensation thumped in his chest as his hand slid across the handle of his weapon, something a Pokémon like him would never carry. He noticed that this mammal, he had a device similar to his own fastened on his waist. Something a trainer that cared about him most likely crafted, with great effort and pain involved, knowing that it would help his Pokémon along every step of the way if he was ever not there to stand beside him…

… seeing this brought tears to the stranger's eyes, but his face remained cold, and his arms were still. He let out a small, shivering croak.

In the heartache, he became angry.

There lay this Pokémon, loved just as he once was, to be defeated without a fair shot and taken away from a caring someone, to be counted along with the numerous other hundreds of Pokémon that this Marowak had slain.

It was the same way _his _trainer had died. In all the months that had passed, spying as hordes of Pokémon overpowered much weaker foes than themselves, taking advantage of their lack of courage of the their friends, and making those who escape regret day after day for months on end what they could have done to save his life until each one of them fell, leaving only his closest and most treasured companion to mourn his loss… and, in a way, they were the same.

A flicker of blue movement caught his eye. The Dewott was stirring from rest, and he was getting to his feet again.

But it was too late. The Marowak was already there, another token of her past deeds in her grasp, poised to bludgeon the helpless animal.

Dewott hadn't seen or known what happened to him, only that he'd been assaulted because his back had been turned and that he was in extreme danger if he stayed where he was. He twinged from the effects of the ground on his body, the mud building up in multiple scratches and scrapes on his right side, where he'd landed after going airborne. A scent that he recognized was growing stronger while his eyes readjusted to the scene. Water now flowed down most of the river, thought it only rose to about an inch and carried Dewott's blood downstream, towards his attacker.

The panic of prey caught in the eagle's vision shocked his body into frenzied thrashes, trying to find the direction of the ground for something to push off of and flee from. His palms and flippers splashed and stung with fear and pain from his fall, until he felt a sudden weight lift from his thigh and his leg bent underneath him, lifting his body up and allowing him to pin his back to the edge of the river.

Dewott's eyes were frowning and open as wide as they would go, struggling to keep his footing as more and more water flooded into the arena. Grimacing, he made a grab for what he realized had been the weight that freed him and let him regain his stance, the weapon of his that was now drifting down the river and away from his reach.

He cursed to himself. The Marowak stopped before him, and he had only a moment to reach for his last remaining scalchop before one last thought crossed his mind.

They had been so careless.

…

Scrafty picked at a hanging piece of dead skin, or perhaps a splinter on his thumb as he repeated the story of how Mimi had met the gang, just as Pachirisu had told it.

The way Pachirisu had preached was so extravagant that it nearly gave Scrafty diabetes as the little chirps hit his eardrums, but it was just as he would have guessed before – it was just another one of their adventures across the lands of Sinnoh and beyond.

'Mimi', a Pichu with a disfigured ear, lived once upon a time thousands of years in the past in the town of Michina. She was a special Pichu, because she shared a special friendship with a man named Damos, a human with the power to touch the hearts of Pokémon. Scrafty made the gagging noise in his mouth to simulate his disgust with the idea, but Pachirisu continued on as the story went into the details, of Damos having broken a pact with the alpha of all Pokémon, Arceus, resulting in Ash and pals being caught in the middle of a battle across the barriers of time.

Mimi met Pikachu and Piplup as she and they worked to save the trainers from an untimely demise. Needless to say, they were successful.

At this point, Scrafty asked why Mimi hadn't joined them after their journey through time. Pachirisu said it was because of her father, but she wouldn't say anything more than _father_. She always put the spin on that word.

And he never said what had happened to her after they had parted ways. Something must have gone down, a specific series of events that would prove to turn Spike into the girl she'd become. Something had changed her from all those years ago.

Now, Scrafty had nothing to think about. Not the tiles on the floor or the fixtures over his head. Not the females that had been chatting quietly, he assumed, since he couldn't hear them, or that Pachirisu had been gone too long for comfort, creating a mixture of emotions in his stomach that he thought best to try to ignore.

As long as you could ignore something, it would go away. He'd learned it from watching Buneary.

Buneary was really smart.

…

Just as in the last paragraph containing content of Spike's discovery, she held a firm embrace on the magazine while Buneary threatened to rip her neck off as she squirmed in her headlock, a paw muffling her joyed squeals. "**You never told me you were a MODEL!**" Spike would have said, had she not been wearing Buneary's arm as a choker. She held Spike face-to-face, squeezing her and begging her to stop before one of the guys heard them.

"I didn't want anyone to see those, Spike!" Buneary silently screamed, hugging her tighter than she meant to.

Not until Spike stopped moving and her face began to turn beet-red did Buneary see how roughly she'd been treating her. She unfastened her paws and slid them off of Spike's neck before she could pass out, trying to snatch the magazine as she stepped back.

Something slung from her paw, a two packages that had been stuck to the back of Spike's neckerchief from earlier, and skittered onto the tile at Buneary's feet. Spike, crying tears of relief, saw them as well. She still held the magazine. Buneary turned to run away.

Spike threw herself forward and caught the bunny's small fluffy tail, and as they fell to the floor together, she lurched for the package on the floor as she positioned herself on Buneary's back.

Buneary grunted for Spike to release her, but she only felt her foot pinning her to the ground while she fidgeted to retrieve something. The copy of PokéStyle was slapped in her face. A questioned and pained look appeared on her face as the reminder of what life used to be stared at her, and the uncomfortable sensation of being molested by a zealous partner overwhelmed her sense of grief. Spike's face suddenly and magically appeared in front of her, by the picture of what used to be Buneary.

"Buneary, _look _at this!" Spike commanded, getting nothing more than a pout as Buneary turned her eyes to the floor, the same floor that her face happened to be lying against. "Do you know what this girl says? She says, 'I'm an amazing, important, perfect-in-every-way girl who won't take anything but what I want, no matter what or who it is.' You're _still_ that girl, Bun. All we have to do is find a way to get her back out here with us."

Spike gave a willful smile to her friend. She saw a glint of hope bounce off her pretty brown eyes.

"I don't think this will work…" Buneary grumbled, now standing.

"Don't be a dummy," Spike said, flicking her wrist. "We've got all day to make you into _this _again." Spike pointed to the picture. "I just wish you'd told me how pretty you were."

Buneary shot a confused stare. "Don't be such a grump," Spike complained. "In these sorts of places, everyone can get a little gay. Now, we need to use _these _little puppies," she said, with the jingle-jangle of the objects in her hand.

Buneary glanced at what Spike had in mind as she held them out to her. "Earrings?" Buneary asked. _I didn't think Spike was the type to go for jewelry, _she thought.

"Not just any old earrings," she said. In fact, Spike held in her hand two pairs of earrings. The first and most alluring was a couplet, gold and thin clasps with a small pearl as the main theme. The second pair, less extravagant but far more valuable, was the platinum-ringed diamond earring of similar design, the pair accenting dual Blueblood Limited Edition Design certification brands. "They must have caught onto the back of my bandana when I knocked the rack down."

Buneary wasn't sure what to think, as Spike's smile made her worry what her intention was. "Can I see the ear again?" Spike asked.

"My, my ear?"

"Let me see for a second," Spike ordered, gently slipping her thumb under Buneary's right ear and signaling her to wait with the other. She'd never found herself so willing to surrender, but she'd never been forced in this way to do anything in the past year. She'd aged, but no one knew it.

Spike curled the ear away from the base, toward herself and straightened it out. Buneary looked away as much as she could, trying to ignore the painfully out of place wounds that dotted her skin. But Spike stared at them not in disgust, but in studious wonder. They did not appear too broken, too unable to be hidden. Buneary's method of hiding was just too direct.

"Buneary, they don't look bad at all. And even if they did, Pikachu wouldn't care… you know that, right." It was rhetorical, but she nodded. "I bet he'd still like you if you kicked him in the goods and spat on them afterward!"

This made Buneary giggle, leading to her biting her lip at the mention of it. "We can do one of each, pearl one on the bottom and diamond on the top. I'll take the other two and wear 'em so everyone knows that we're best friends forever," Spike said, fumbling with the clasps. "I mean, only if it's okay with you, that…"

If the magic of the store was ever brighter, a magnificent rainbow would have formed in the windy draft that ushered no hint of rain, and the two friends would have locked arms forever. They, the friends who'd known each other for thousands of years whilst being completely unaware of their ever-growing relationship, had been through more together than they could possibly know about. For Buneary, she knew what she knew and didn't question that Spike, whether or not she would stick around, was the best friend she would ever get in this world without having to watch any others die before her. She knew that happiness was something she'd long forgotten to feel, but that Spike's reappearance in her life and everyone else's meant a second chance, in more ways than one and in even more ways than that, if it makes sense.

What Spike had gone through, though Buneary did not know of it, was the most tragic life of a young Pokémon who's one friend dejected her and belittled her own value as a living being. And, though Buneary knew not the hardships of her strained companion, she knew how long a ways empathy would go if she took it in care.

There was once a time in the world where friends were not needed, where they were more of a convenience than a privilege to have. It was a time that Spike had never known, because she had a tendency to love without condition. It was her weakness, and it had weakened her.

"We're best friends, Spike."

And they were.

* * *

_Chapter Five uploaded on July 2nd, 1:50 PM Central Standard Time. Visit my profile for more information. Be sure to review, fave and follow. It would really help me out. Words this chapter: 9,083.  
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